64 THE SCIENCE OF LOGIC 



only the gases, but the vessels containing them ? and the agencies 

 that produced them ? and those that brought them together in 

 the proper proportions ? Evidently not. We must, clearly, draw 

 the line limiting our backward search somewhere. And from the 

 region between it and the line bordering on the effect we must 

 set aside all the individual modes and circumstances which may 

 indeed be essential for this individual instance of the effect, but 

 which are indifferent and irrelevant so far as the production of this 

 kind of effect is concerned : * for it is not with the individual effect, 

 but with the kindvi effect, the production of water as such (i.e. 

 with the abstract and universal], that science is concerned. We 

 must, therefore, confine our attention to a limited group of ante 

 cedents in close proximity to the effect, analyse this group, and 

 set forth, as the &quot; total proximate cause &quot; of the phenomenon, only 

 that collection of factors which we regard as the sufficient (or 

 necessitating) and indispensable PROXIMATE factors in its production. 

 Moreover, the scientist, in enumerating these, will omit, and usually 

 does omit, such factors as are obviously necessary for the result : 

 he assumes it to be universally understood that they are present. 

 His concern rather is to detect some one factor (or collection and 

 collocation of factors) which immediately precedes the effect, and 

 which actually determines the effective co-operation of the existing 

 forces in the production of this specific kind of effect. 2 This 

 factor he usually calls the &quot; determining cause (or condition)&quot; of the 

 phenomenon. All the factors in this proximate collection all 

 the proximate factors sufficient and indispensable for the effect 

 constitute what the scientist regards as the &quot;proximate (efficient) 

 cause &quot; of the phenomenon in question. 



Although the principle of causality refers primarily to efficient 

 causes, i.e. causes which, by means of action, of real change or 

 motion, produce their effects ; and although modern writers on in 

 duction have concentrated their attention almost exclusively on 

 physical efficient causes i.e. those which are, in themselves or 

 their action, perceptible to the senses as being the more capable 

 of exact physical investigation, and even of mechanical measure 

 ment : still, the scope of inductive logic must necessarily embrace 

 the investigation of material, formal, and final causes, no less than 

 of efficient causes. 3 To know a thing scientifically, we must know 



1 Cf. JOYCE, op. cit., p. 221. a Cf. JOSEPH, op. cit., p. 393. 



3 On this point we may refer the reader to a suggestive article by W. J. ROBERTS 

 in Mind (N.S., no. 32, October, 1909), connecting the theory of induction with 

 Aristotle s doctrine on formal cause. Cf. JOSEPH, Logic, p. 457. 



