336 THE SCIENCE OF LOGIC 



sometimes neglected in attempts to set up the same sort of ideal 

 for all departments of science (203). 



Finally, it is not always easy to determine, whether in the 

 physical or in the human sciences, what are the determining or 

 causal factors, and what the determined elements or effects, in 

 the complex phenomena actually before us ; and the difficulty is 

 increased by the undoubtedly common fact of interaction, the 

 fact that the elements are often, by their mutual interaction in 

 the reality, partly causes and partly effects (243). As an 

 illustration of the difficulty of discriminating between cause and 

 effect, we are informed &quot; that meteorologists are not agreed 

 whether the copious and sudden downfalls of rain which usually 

 attend thunder-storms are the cause or the effect of the electric 

 discharge. The common opinion is that they are the effect, 

 but Sir John Herschel held that they were the cause.&quot; 1 And, 

 as illustrating the interaction between cause and effect, a thought 

 ful and suggestive passage from Sir G. C. Lewis s Methods of 

 Observation and Reasoning in Politics 2 will be amply sufficient : 

 &quot;Thus,&quot; he writes, &quot;habits of industry may produce wealth, 

 whilst the acquisition of wealth may promote industry ; again, 

 habits of study may sharpen the understanding, and the in 

 creased acuteness of the understanding may afterwards increase 

 the appetite for study. . . . The general intelligence and good 

 sense of the people may promote its good government, and the 

 goodness of the government may, in its turn, increase the in 

 telligence of the people, and contribute to the formation of sound 

 opinions among them. Drunkenness is in general the conse 

 quence of a low degree of intelligence, as may be observed both 

 among savages and in civilized countries. But, in return, a habit of 

 drunkenness prevents the cultivation of intellect, and strengthens 

 the cause out of which it grows. As Plato remarks, education 

 improves nature, and nature facilitates education. National 

 character, again, is both effect and cause : it reacts on the circum 

 stances from which it arises. The national peculiarities of a 

 people, its race, physical structure, climate, territory, etc., form 

 originally a certain character, which tends to create certain in 

 stitutions, political and domestic, in harmony with that character. 

 These institutions strengthen, perpetuate, and reproduce the 

 character out of which they grew, and so on in succession, each 



1 WELTON, op. cit., pp. 275-6. a vol. i., p. 375 ; apud WELTON, op. cit., p. 276. 



