LAW OF CAUSATION. 367 



that his foot slipped in climbing a ladder, we omit as a thing 

 unnecessary to be stated the circumstance of his weight, 

 though quite as indispensable a condition of the effect which 

 took place. When we say that the assent of the crown to a 

 bill makes it law, we mean that the assent, being never given 

 until all the other conditions are fulfilled, makes up the sum 

 of the conditions, though no one now regards it as the prin 

 cipal one. When the decision of a legislative assembly has 

 been determined by the casting vote of the chairman, we 

 sometimes say that this one person was the cause of all the 

 effects which resulted from the enactment. Yet we do not 

 really suppose that his single vote contributed more to the 

 result than that of any other person who voted in the affirma 

 tive ; but, for the purpose we have in view, which is to insist 

 on his individual responsibility, the part which any other 

 person had in the transaction is not material. 



In all these instances the fact which was dignified with the 

 name of cause, was the one condition which came last into 

 existence. But it must not be supposed that in the employ 

 ment of the term this or any other rule is always adhered to. 

 Nothing can better show the absence of any scientific ground 

 for the distinction between the cause of a phenomenon and 

 its conditions, than the capricious manner in which we select 

 from among the conditions that which we choose to deno 

 minate the cause. However numerous the conditions may be, 

 there is hardly any of them which may not, according to 

 the purpose of our immediate discourse, obtain that nominal 

 pre-eminence. This will be seen by analysing the conditions 

 of some one familiar phenomenon. For example, a stone 

 thrown into water falls to the bottom. What are the condi 

 tions of this event ? In the first place there must be a stone, 

 and water, and the stone must be thrown into the water ; but 

 these suppositions forming part of the enunciation of the 

 phenomenon itself, to include them also among the conditions 

 would be a vicious tautology ; and this class of conditions, 

 therefore, have never received the name of cause from any but 

 the Aristotelians, by whom they were called the material cause, 



