xviii CONTENTS, 



CHAPTEE XII. Of the Explanation of Laws of Nature. 



PAGE 



1. Explanation defined ..... 518 



2. First mode of explanation, by resolving the law of a com- 



plex effect into the laws of the concurrent causes and 



the fact of their coexistence .... 518 



3. Second mode ; by the detection of an intermediate link in 



the sequence . . . . . .519 



4. Laws are always resolved into laws more general than 



themselves ...... 520 



5. Third mode ; the subsumption of less general laws under 



a more general one ..... 524 



6. What the explanation of a law of nature amounts to . 526 



CHAPTEE XIII. Miscellaneous Examples of the Explanation of 

 Laws of Nature. 



1. The general theories of the sciences . . . 529 



2. Examples from chemical speculations . . . 531 



3. Example from Dr. Brown-Sequard's researches on the 



nervous system ...... 533 



4. Examples of following newly- discovered laws into their 



complex manifestations ..... 534 



5. Examples of empirical generalizations, afterwards con- 



firmed and explained deductively . . . 536 



6. Example from mental science .... 538 



7. Tendency of all the sciences to become deductive . 539 



