EMPIRICAL LAWS. 47 



change in one of these, or in the other, or in both. We might, 

 then, even in the absence of any other evidence, form a reason- 

 able presumption, from the invariable presence of both these 

 elements in the antecedent, that the sequence is probably not 

 an ultimate law, but a result of the laws of the two different 

 agents ; a presumption only to be destroyed when we had 

 made ourselves so well acquainted with the laws of both, as 

 to be able to affirm that those laws could not by themselves 

 produce the observed result. 



There are but few known cases of succession from very 

 complex antecedents, which have not either been actually 

 accounted for from simpler laws, or inferred with great 

 probability (from the ascertained existence of intermediate 

 links of causation not yet understood) to be capable of being 

 so accounted for. It is, therefore, highly probable that all 

 sequences from complex antecedents are thus resolvable, and 

 that ultimate laws are in all cases comparatively simple. If 

 there were not the other reasons already mentioned for 

 believing that the laws of organized nature are resolvable 

 into simpler laws, it would be almost a sufficient reason 

 that the antecedents in most of the sequences are so very 

 complex. 



7. In the preceding discussion we have recognised two 

 kinds of empirical- laws : those known to be laws of causation, 

 but presumed to be resolvable into simpler laws ; and those 

 not known to be laws of causation at all. Both these kinds 

 of laws agree in the demand which they make for being 

 explained by deduction, and agree in being the appropriate 

 means of verifying such deduction, since they represent the 

 experience with which the result of the deduction must be 

 compared. They agree, further, in this, that until explained, 

 and connected with the ultimate laws from which they result, 

 they have not attained the highest degree of certainty of 

 which laws are susceptible. It has been shown on a former 

 occasion that laws of causation which are derivative, and 

 compounded of simpler laws, are not only, as the nature of the 

 case implies, less general, but even less certain, than the 



