Our standards for promoting a commonsensical observation to a “metaphysical principle” should be very high indeed. As Scottish philosopher David Hume—who, if anyone, deserves to be called the father of poetic naturalism, perhaps with his Roman predecessor Lucretius as the grandfather—pointed out, the Principle of Sufficient Reason doesn’t seem to rise to that level. Hume noted that conceiving of effects without causes might seem unusual, but it does not lead to any inherent contradiction or logical impossibility.
