COEXISTENCES INDEPENDENT OF CAUSATION. 113 



certainty be considered ultimate ; and of these the ultimate 

 properties are probably much more numerous that we at pre- 

 sent recognise, since every successful instance of the resolution 

 of the properties of their compounds into simpler laws, 

 generally leads to the recognition of properties in the elements 

 distinct from any previously known. The resolution of the 

 laws of the heavenly motions, established the previously un- 

 known ultimate property of a mutual attraction between all 

 bodies : the resolution, so far as it has yet proceeded, of the 

 laws of crystallization, of chemical composition, electricity, 

 magnetism, &c., points to various polarities, ultimately in- 

 herent in the particles of which bodies are composed ; the 

 comparative atomic weights of different kinds of bodies were 

 ascertained by resolving, into more general laws, the uniformi- 

 ties observed in the proportions in which substances combine 

 with one another ; and so forth. Thus although every reso- 

 lution of a complex uniformity into simpler and more elemen- 

 tary laws has an apparent tendency to diminish the number 

 of the ultimate properties, and really does remove many pro- 

 perties from the list ; yet, (since the result of this simplifying 

 process is to trace up an ever greater variety of different effects 

 to the same agents,) the further we advance in this direction, 

 the greater number of distinct properties we are forced to 

 recognise in one and the same object : the coexistences of which 

 properties must accordingly be ranked among the ultimate 

 generalities of nature. 



3. There are, therefore, only two kinds of propositions 

 which assert uniformity of coexistence between properties. 

 Either the properties depend on causes, or they do not. If 

 they do, the proposition which affirms them to be coexistent 

 is a derivative law of coexistence between effects, and until 

 resolved into the laws of causation on which it depends, is an 

 empirical law, and to be tried by the principles of induction to 

 which such laws are amenable. If, on the other hand, the 

 properties do not depend on causes, but are ultimate properties ; 

 then if it be true that they invariably coexist, they must all be 

 ultimate properties of one and the same Kind ; and it is of 



VOL. II. 8 



