386 INDUCTION. 



entire universe could ever recur a second time, all subsequent 

 states would return too, and history would, like a circulating 

 decimal of many figures, periodically repeat itself: 



Jam redit et virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna. . . . 

 Alter erit turn Tiphys, et altera quse vehat Argo 

 Delectos heroaa ; erunt quoque altera bella, 

 Atque iterum ad Trojam magnus mittetur Achilles. 



And though things do not really revolve in this eternal round, 

 the whole series of events in the history of the universe, past 

 and future, is not the less capable, in its own nature, of being 

 constructed a priori by any one whom we can suppose 

 acquainted with the original distribution of all natural agents, 

 and with the whole of their properties, that is, the laws of 

 succession existing between them and their effects : saving the 

 far more than human powers of combination and calculation 

 which would be required, even in one possessing the data, for 

 the actual performance of the task. 



8. Since everything which occurs is determined by 

 laws of causation and collocations of the original causes, it 

 follows that the coexistences which are observable among 

 effects cannot be themselves the subject of any similar set of 

 laws, distinct from laws of causation. Uniformities there are, 

 as well of coexistence as of succession, among effects; but 

 these must in all cases be a mere result either of the identity 

 or of the coexistence of their causes : if the causes did not 

 coexist, neither could the effects. And these causes being also 

 effects of prior causes, and these of others, until we reach the 

 primeval causes, it follows that (except in the case of effects 

 which can be traced immediately or remotely to one and the 



would, I think, on strict self-examination, find to be, the application to human 

 actions and volitions of the ideas involved in the common use of the term 

 Necessity ; which I agree with them in objecting to. But if they would 

 consider that by saying that a person s actions necessarily follow from his 

 character, all that is really meant (for no more is meant in any case whatever 

 of causation) is that he invariably does act in conformity to his character, and 

 that any one who thoroughly knew his character would certainly predict how 

 he would act in any supposable case ; they probably would not find this doctrine 

 either contrary to their experience or revolting to their feelings. And no more 

 than this is contended for by any one but an Asiatic fatalist. 



