THE LAWS OF SCIENCE 39 



recognize that there are certain relations between events 

 concerning which all men can agree. 



Our definition then limits science to the study of these 



special relations between events. And this conclusion, 



though the form in which it has been expressed and the 



reasons alleged for it may be unfamiliar, is very well 



known and widely recognized. For the relation of which 



we have spoken is often called that of " cause and effect " ; 



to say that, if a book falls off the table, it will make a 



noise when it strikes the floor is much the same as to say 



that the noise is the effect of the fall, and the fall the cause 



of the noise. Again, assertions of cause and effect in 



nature are often called " laws " or " laws of nature " ; 



in fact, the assertion that a book, or any other object, 



will fall if unsupported is one of the most familiar instances 



that is often offered of one of the most widely known laws, 



namely the law of gravitation. Accordingly, all that we 



said is that science studies cause and effect and that 



it studies the laws of nature ; nothing can be more trite 



than such a statement of the objects of science. Indeed, 



\yect that some readers thought that a great deal of 



unnecessary fuss was made in the previous chapter and 



that all our difficulties about the relation between science 



and nature would have vanished, if it had been said simply 



that studied, not nature, but the laws of nature. 



However here, as so often, the popular view, though it 



>f truth, is not the whole truth. 



ining popularly attached to " cause and effect " 



and too loose and vague ; " cause and 



effc< he conversational sense, includes some rela- 



are not studied by science and excludes some 



!ie assertions which are popularly regarded as 



are not i d there are many 



pularly termed so. The 



EM of our definition to give a 



more precise , and to show ck 



