DISCOVERY CONFORMS TO LAW. 151 



that the proximate causes of the succession in which relations 

 are reduced to law, are numerous and involved ; it is also 

 manifest that there is one ultimate cause to which these 

 proximate causes are subordinate. As the several circum 

 stances that determine the early or late recognition of uni 

 formities are circumstances that determine the number and 

 strength of the impressions which these uniformities make 

 on the mind, it follows that the progression conforms to a 

 certain fundamental principle of psychology. We see d 

 posteriori, what we concluded d priori, that the order in which 

 relations are generalized, depends on the frequency and 

 impressiveness with which they are repeated in conscious 

 experience. 



Having roughly analyzed the progress of the past, let 

 us take advantage of the light thus thrown on the present, 

 and consider what is implied respecting the future. 



Note first that the likelihood of the universality of Law 

 has been ever growing greater. Out of the countless co 

 existences and sequences with which mankind are environed, 

 they have been continually transferring some from the group 

 whose order was supposed to be arbitrary, to the group 

 whose order is known to be uniform. And manifestly, as 

 fast as the relations that are unreduced to law become 

 fewer, the probability that among them there are some that 

 do not conform to law, becomes less. To put the argument 

 numerically It is clear that when out of surrounding phe 

 nomena a hundred of several kinds have been found to occur 

 in constant connexions, there arises a slight presumption that 

 all phenomena occur in constant connexions. When uni 

 formity has been established in a thousand cases, more varied 

 in their kinds, the presumption gains strength. And when 

 the known cases of uniformity amount to myriads, including 

 many of each variety, it becomes an ordinary induction that 

 uniformity exists everywhere. 



