LECTURE VIII 



ON THE NOTION OF CAUSE, 



WITH APPLICATIONS TO THE 



FREE-WILL PROBLEM 



The nature of philosophic analysis, as illustrated in our 

 previous lectures, can now be stated in general terms. 

 We start from a body of common knowledge, which 

 constitutes our data. On examination, the data are 

 found to be complex, rather vague, and largely interde- 

 pendent logically. By analysis we reduce them to pro- 

 positions which are as nearly as possible simple and 

 precise, and we arrange them in deductive chains, in 

 which a certain number of initial propositions form a 

 logical guarantee for all the rest. These initial pro- 

 positions are premisses for the body of knowledge in 

 question. Premisses are thus quite different from data 

 they are simpler, more precise, and less infected with 

 logical redundancy. If the work of analysis has been 

 performed completely, they will be wholly free from 

 logical redundancy, wholly precise, and as simple as is 

 logically compatible with their leading to the given body 

 of knowledge. The discovery of these premisses belongs 

 to philosophy ; but the work of deducing the body of 

 common knowledge from them belongs to mathematics, 

 if " mathematics " is interpreted in a somewhat liberal 

 sense. 



211 



