21 



upon more than one cause ; and as all things are effects, there can 

 be nothing simple and elementary, but all things must be produced 

 by causes. 



22. The causes which make an effect can supply nothing but 

 themselves, nothing but that which pre-existed the effect there- 

 fore is no new existence, but it js a new form : called new, from its 

 having taken place at some known period. Surely, it will be said, 

 an effect appears to be very different from its causes? It must be 

 different from its individual causes, but is that which it is made fry 

 them all ; the causes must be different individually from their effect, 

 or the whole; and this, in some respects, is a gigantic principle. 



23. The mode by which a cause acts has nothing mystical in it, 

 it is itself, and no more than itself, and it can do no more than exist. 

 But it may exist separately, that is, as an effect dependent only 

 upon its own causes. When it performs that which characterizes a 

 cause, viz. when it produces an effect, it is by combining with some- 

 thing else. 



24. In this combination there is no new production ; bqth 

 causes (or if they were a thousand it would be the same thing) are 

 changed, so as to exist, still preserving every property which belongs 

 to them, in another form. This other form is the effect which is 

 thus conjointly produced. 



25. Causes do not lose their existence in changing their form : 

 although in the effect the causes separately may not be recognized, 

 they cannot lose their existence; the whole is a different combina- 

 tion, and of course possesses a double set of properties, which will 

 individually have some share in determining its character. Every 

 thing is liable to be considered as an effect: and all those things are 

 liable to be considered as causes, which, from a relation between 

 themselves and others, might change their form and produce effects. 



26. The relation just mentioned is an effect, and of course 

 determined by its propei causes. 



27. There are effects in which the causes are lost to our 

 senses, as in most or all chymical mutations. These causes are 

 nevertheless discovered in such effects by analysis; and when these 

 causes are withdrawn, the existence which they helped to compose, 

 ceases, or these effects cease. There are other effects where the 

 causes are separately recognized: such are the effects produced by 

 arrangement of causes, where the parts are seen individually, but 

 where the effect results, a$ in other instances, from the combination 

 of the whole. 



28. Single effects in a body are an arbitrary limitation : they 

 are so if the mind chuses to consider them as such. But the whole 

 body may be regarded as an effect, and then these minor ones come 

 to be regarded as causes. Thus our earth is an effect, so is the 

 meanest particle which helps to compose it. 



29. Consistently with the definition before given, and as a test 

 of the relation therein mentioned, a cause is that without which the 

 ffftct cannot exist: it is identified with tlie effect, and by this cir- 



