74 THE SCIENCE OF LOGIC 



sciousness of our own free volitional activity that we derive the notion of 

 efficiency in the first instance. Efficiency we conceive as positive influence in 

 the production of changes or effects by the exertion of power or force. The 

 earliest efficient causality of which we become aware is our own free efficient 

 causality. Then we come to conceive external nature as also endowed with 

 powers or forces, as efficient in the production of changes or effects. Of course 

 there have been and are philosophers who maintain that belief in real efficiency 

 in nature is an illusion ; and some have extended their denial even to the 

 domain of mind as well. Occasionalists take up this attitude on the ground 

 that efficient causality is essentially an attribute of the Creator, incom 

 municable to the creature. This view does not concern us here. Our present 

 purpose is merely to emphasize an obvious distinction between the notion of 

 efficient cause whether free or necessary and the notion of uniform con 

 nexion whether of coexistence or sequence between phenomena ; and to 

 point out that it is exclusively to the latter concept Empiricists apply the terms 

 &quot; causation &quot; or &quot; causality &quot;. 



For the rest, as far as the theory of physical induction is concerned, this 

 later usage is not without its conveniences ; for in the first place, it is regularity, 

 uniformity, invariability of the connexion between physical causes and their 

 effects, that forms the real objective ground of our generalizations and inferences 

 about them : 1 not the inner nature of that connexion itself. And secondly, 

 I if the physical scientist sets up as his ideal the discovery of the perceptible ante 

 cedents, or groups of antecedents, which are sufficient and indispensable for the 

 production of certain phenomena so as to be able to apply this knowledge in 

 bringing such phenomena about as in engineering and the other applied 

 sciences the ideal is a perfectly legitimate one. 2 Only, if he is himself thus con 

 tent with the discovery of proximate, perceptible antecedents, he must not deny 

 l the possibility of prosecuting the search for remoter, non-perceptible agencies. 3 

 And if he bestows on those visible groups of&quot; invariable and unconditional ante 

 cedents &quot; the title of &quot;causes,&quot; we need not object to this for they are de 

 facto &quot; causes,&quot; though we have, perhaps, some reason to complain that he is 

 changing the traditional meaning of an important term without sufficient justifica 

 tion : even were there no such things in existence as causes in the traditional 

 sense of the term, he would not refute the traditional belief by merely changing 

 the definition of the name. 



We agree with Mr. Joseph that the freedom of the human will is a difficult 

 problem, not to be argued here. 4 And the same may be said of &quot; efficiency &quot;. 

 But to deny to free will the title of &quot; cause &quot; does not solve the problem or 

 prove free will to be a fiction. At all events men generally believe that they 

 are free agents, and that they freely &quot; cause &quot; or produce &quot; effects. In the 

 face of this fact we see no adequate reason to justify the logician in asserting 

 absolutely and without qualification that &quot; causa! connexions are necessary and 

 universal,&quot; or that &quot; to assert causation is to assert uniformity of connexion &quot;. 6 

 The logician must take into account not merely the domain of physical nature, 



l Cf. VENN, Empirical Logic, pp. 50, 51, 93; MILL, Logic, iii., v., 2. 



&quot;Cf. JOYCE, op. cit., p. 223. 



. 3 &quot; I premise, then, that when ... I speak of the cause of any phenomenon, 



^ I do not mean a cause which is not itself a phenomenon.&quot; MILL, Logic, iii., v., 2. 



*op. cit., p. 373. *ibid., p. 375 (italics ours). 



