EXPLANATION OF LAWS. 521 



C, is less general than either of the laws which connect B 

 with C and A with B. This will appear from very simple 

 considerations. 



All laws of causation are liable to he counteracted or frus- 

 trated, by the non-fulfilment of some negative condition : the 

 tendency, therefore, of B to produce may be defeated. Now 

 the law that A produces B, is equally fulfilled whether B is 

 followed by C or not ; but the law that A produces C by 

 means of B, is of course only fulfilled when B is really followed 

 by C, and is therefore less general than the law that A pro- 

 duces B. It is also less general than the law that B produces 

 C. For B may have other causes besides A ; and as A pro- 

 duces C only by means of B, while B produces C whether it 

 has itself been produced by A or by anything else, the second 

 law embraces a greater number of instances, covers as it were 

 a greater space of ground, than the first. 



Thus, in our former example, the law that the contact of 

 an object causes a change in the state of the nerve, is more 

 general than the law that contact with an object causes sensa- 

 tion, since, for aught we know, the change in the nerve may 

 equally take place when, from a counteracting cause, as for 

 instance, strong mental excitement, the sensation does not 

 follow ; as in a battle, where wounds are sometimes received 

 without any consciousness of receiving them. And again, the 

 law that change in the state of a nerve produces sensation, is 

 more general than the law that contact with an object pro- 

 duces sensation ; since the sensation equally follows the change 

 in the nerve when not produced by contact with an object, 

 but by some other cause ; as in the well-known case, when a 

 person who has lost a limb, feels the same sensation which he 

 has been accustomed to call'a pain in the limb. 



Not only are the laws of more immediate sequence into 

 which the law of a remote sequence is resolved, laws of greater 

 generality than that law is, but (as a consequence of, or rather 

 as implied in, their greater generality) they are more to be 

 relied on ; there are fewer chances of their being ultimately 

 found not to be universally true. From the moment when 

 the sequence of A and C is shown not to be immediate, but to 



