COEXISTENCES INDEPENDENT OF CAUSATION. 121 



observations renders it impossible to predict to what extent 

 unknown counteracting causes may be distributed throughout 

 nature. But when a generalization has been found to hold 

 good of a very large proportion of all things whatever, it is 

 already proved that nearly all the causes which exist in 

 nature have no power over it ; that very few changes in the 

 combination of causes can effect it ; since the greater number 

 of possible combinations must have already existed in some 

 one or other of the instances in which it has been found true. 

 If, therefore, any empirical law is a result of causation, the 

 more general it is, the more it may be depended on. And 

 even if it be no result of causation, but an ultimate coex 

 istence, the more general it is, the greater amount of expe 

 rience it is derived from, and the greater therefore is the 

 probability that if exceptions had existed, some would already 

 have presented themselves. 



For these reasons, it requires much more evidence to 

 establish an exception to one of the more general empirical 

 laws than to the more special ones. We should not have any 

 difficulty in believing that there might be a new Kind of crow ; 

 or a new kind of bird resembling a crow in the properties 

 hitherto considered distinctive of that Kind. But it would 

 require stronger proof to convince us of the existence of a 

 Kind of crow having properties at variance with any generally 

 recognised universal property of birds ; and a still higher de 

 gree if the properties conflict with any recognised universal 

 property of animals. And this is conformable to the mode of 

 judgment recommended by the common sense and general 

 practice of mankind, who are more incredulous as to any 

 novelties in nature, according to the degree of generality of the 

 experience which these novelties seem to contradict. 



9. Still, however, even these greater generalizations, 

 which embrace comprehensive Kinds, containing under them 

 a great number and variety of infinite species, are only empi 

 rical laws, resting on induction by simple enumeration merely, 

 and not on any process of elimination, a process wholly inap 

 plicable to this sort of case. Such generalizations, therefore, 



