376 METHODOLOGY OF SCIENCE 



affirmative judgment, is valid also for each particular induction, 

 and again for the general causal law. If in the course of our per- 

 ceptions we meet uniform sequences, then the judgment, " These 

 sequences are uniform," comprehends the common content of many 

 judgments with formal necessity of thought. Empiricism, too, does 

 not seriously doubt that the hypothesis of a general functional, even 

 though only temporal, relation between cause and effect is deduced 

 as an expectation of possible experience with necessity from our real 

 experience. It questions only the doctrine that the relation between 

 the events regarded as cause and effect has any other than a purely 

 empirical import. The reality of an event that is preceded and fol- 

 lowed uniformly by no other remains for this view, as we have seen, 

 a possibility of thought. 



In opposition to empiricism, we now formulate the thesis to be 

 established: Wherever two events a and b are known to follow one 

 another uniformly and immediately, there we must require with 

 formal necessity that some element in the preceding a be thought of 

 as fundamental, which will determine sufficiently b's appearance or 

 make that appearance necessary. The necessity of the relation 

 between the events regarded as cause and effect is, therefore, the 

 question at issue. 



We must keep in mind from the very start that less is asserted in 

 this formulation than we are apt to read into it. It states merely 

 that something in a must be thought of as fundamental, which makes 

 b necessary. On the other hand, it says nothing as to what this 

 fundamental something is, or how it is constituted. It leaves entirely 

 undecided whether or not this something that our thought must 

 necessarily postulate is a possible content of perception or can be- 

 come such, accordingly whether or not it can become an object of 

 our knowledge, or whether or not it lies beyond the bounds of all 

 our possible experience and hence all our possible knowledge. It 

 contains nothing whatsoever that tells us how the determination 

 of b takes place through a. The word "fundamental" is intended 

 to express all this absence of determination. 



Thus we hope to show a necessity of thought peculiar to the rela- 

 tion between cause and effect. This is the same as saying that our 

 proof will establish the logical impossibility of the contradictory 

 assertion; for the logical impossibility of the contradictory assertion 

 is the only criterion of logical necessity. Thus the proof that we seek 

 can be given only indirectly. In the course of this proof, we can 

 disregard the immediacy of the constant. sequence and confine our 

 attention to the uniformity of the sequence, not only for the sake of 

 brevity, but also because, as we have seen, we have the right to 

 speak of near and remote causes. We may then proceed as follows. 



If there is not something fundamental in a constant antecedent 



