370 INDUCTION. 



conditions, either positive or negative, is found, on occasion, 

 completely to accord.* 



The cause, then, philosophically speaking, is the sum total 

 of the conditions, positive and negative taken together ; the 

 whole of the contingencies of every description, which "being 

 realized, the consequent invariably follows. The negative 



* The assertion, that any and every one of the conditions of a phenomenon 

 may be and is, on some occasions and for some purposes, spoken of as the 

 cause, has been disputed by an intelligent reviewer of this work in the Prospec- 

 tive Review (the predecessor of the justly esteemed National Review], who main- 

 tains that "we always apply the word cause rather to that element in the ante- 

 cedents which exercises force, and which would tend at all times to produce the 

 same or a similar effect to that which, under certain conditions, it would actually 

 produce." And he says, that " every one would feel" the expression, that the 

 cause of a surprise was the sentinel's being off his post, to be incorrect ; but 

 that the " allurement or force which drew him off his post, might be so called, 

 because in doing so it removed a resisting power which would have prevented 

 the surprise." I cannot think that it would be wrong to say, that the event 

 took place because the sentinel was absent, and yet right to say that it took 

 place because he was bribed to be absent. Since the only direct effect of the 

 bribe was his absence, the bribe could be called the remote cause of the surprise, 

 only on the supposition that the absence was the proximate cause ; nor does it 

 seem to me that any one (who had not a theory to support) would use the one 

 expression and reject the other. 



The reviewer observes, that when a person dies of poison, his possession of 

 bodily organs is a necessary condition, but that no one would ever speak of it 

 as the cause. I admit the fact ; but I believe the reason to be, that the occa- 

 sion could never arise for so speaking of it ; for when in the inaccuracy of com- 

 mon discourse we are led to speak of some one condition of a phenomenon as its 

 cause, the condition so spoken of is always one which it is at least possible that 

 the hearer may require to be informed of. The possession of bodily organs is a 

 known condition, and to give that as the answer, when asked the cause of a per- 

 son's death, would not supply the information sought. Once conceive that a 

 doubt could exist as to his having bodily organs, or that he were to be compared 

 with some being who had them not, and cases may be imagined in which it might 

 be said that his possession of them was the cause of his death. If Faust and 

 Mephistopheles together took poison, it might be said that Faust died because 

 he was a human being, and had a body, while Mephistopheles survived because 

 he was a spirit. 



It is for the same reason that no one (as the reviewer remarks) " calls the 

 cause of a leap, the muscles or sinews of the body, though they are necessary 

 conditions ; nor the cause of a self-sacrifice, the knowledge which was necessary 

 for it ; nor the cause of writing a book, that a man has time for it, which is a 

 necessary condition." These conditions (besides that they are antecedent states, 

 and not proximate antecedent events, and are therefore never the conditions in 



