LAW OF CAUSATION. 373 



the general axiom that all causes are liable to be counteracted 

 in their effects by one another, to dispense with the consideration 

 of negative conditions entirely, and limit the notion of cause 

 to the assemblage of the positive conditions of the phenomenon : 

 one negative condition invariably understood, and the same in 

 all instances (namely, the absence of counteracting causes) 

 being sufficient, along with the sum of the positive conditions, 

 to make up the whole set of circumstances on which the phe 

 nomenon is dependent. 



4. Among the positive conditions, as we have seen that 

 there are some to which, in common parlance, the term cause 

 is more readily and frequently awarded, so there are others to 

 which it is, in ordinary circumstances, refused. In most cases 

 of causation a distinction is commonly drawn between some 

 thing which acts, and some other thing which is acted upon ; 

 between an agent and a patient. Both of these, it would be 

 universally allowed, are conditions of the phenomenon ; but it 

 would be thought absurd to call the latter the cause, that title 

 being reserved for the former. The distinction, however, 

 vanishes on examination, or rather is found to be only verbal ; 

 arising from an incident of mere expression, namely, that the 

 object said to be acted upon, and which is considered as the scene 

 in which the effect takes place, is commonly included in the 

 phrase by which the effect is spoken of, so that if it were also 

 reckoned as part of the cause, the seeming incongruity woulc 

 arise of its being supposed to cause itself. In the instance 

 which we have already had, of falling bodies, the question was 

 thus put : What is the cause which makes a stone fall ? and 

 if the answer had been &quot; the stone itself,&quot; the expression 

 would have been in apparent contradiction to the meaning of 

 the word cause. The stone, therefore, is conceived as the 

 patient, and the earth (or, according to the common and 

 most unphilosophical practice, some occult quality of the 

 earth) is represented as the agent or cause. But that there is 

 nothing fundamental in the distinction may be seen from this, 

 that it is quite possible to conceive the stone as causing its 

 own fall, provided the language employed be such as to save 



