528 



INDUCTION. 



assumptions, which being granted, the order of nature as it 

 exists would be the result ? What are the fewest general pro 

 positions from which all the uniformities existing in nature 

 could be deduced ? 



The laws, thus explained or resolved, are sometimes said 

 to be accounted for ; but the expression is incorrect, if taken 

 to mean anything more than what has been already stated. In 

 minds not habituated to accurate thinking, there is often a 

 confused notion that the general laws are the causes of the 

 partial ones ; that the law of general gravitation, for example, 

 causes the phenomenon of the fall of bodies to the earth. But 

 to assert this, would be a misuse of the word cause : terrestrial 

 gravity is not an effect of general gravitation, but a case of it ; 

 that is, one kind of the particular instances in which that 

 general law obtains. To account for a law of nature means, 

 and can mean, nothing more than to assign other laws more 

 general, together with collocations, which laws and collocations 

 being supposed, the partial law follows without any additional 

 supposition. 



