THE METAPHYSICS OF SCIEl!?^CE. 359 



When a certain mode of sequence is cognized as repeat- 

 edly and continuously occurring, we generalize by calling 

 it fixed and invariable. The invariable order of succes- 

 sion of two or more phenomena is the law in accordance 

 with which the occurrence of the sequents is regulated. 

 The law being ascertained, we feel confident, whenever 

 the antecedent is cognized, that one or more sequents 

 will come into existence. We thus predict events on the 

 strength of our confidence in the uniformity and irrepeal- 

 ability of the law induced. Whenever a mode of sequence 

 is cognized which is not repeated, or is repeated only in 

 such a manner that no regularity or uniformity is dis- 

 covered, we record it, for the time, as a variable mode 

 of sequence. We fail to induce the laiv under which the 

 phenomena come into existence. 



Yet we are psychically so constituted as to believe in the 

 uniformity of nature. Even orders of succession which 

 seem capricious or chaotic must imply some law under 

 which they succeed, and in the eye of which they are in- 

 variable. In this intuitive faith we seek to discover the 

 law. 



The method of the search is the mental juxtaposition 

 of two or more series of successions judged to be funda- 

 mentally cognate, and the selection of such terms in the 

 juxtaposed series as exactly coincide with each other. 

 These terms, thus observed to recur in fixed order, yield 

 the law of their recurrence. The intercalated terms re- 

 main apparently adventitious, and must occur in accord- 

 ance with one or more different laws which may remain 

 undiscovered, or may be discovered, one by one, by means 

 of the juxtaposition of a larger number of series, and the 

 exercise of a broader mental power of holding phenomena 



