114 



INDUCTION. 



these only that the coexistences can be classed as a peculiar 

 sort of laws of nature. 



When we affirm that all crows are black, or that all negroes 

 have woolly hair, we assert an uniformity of coexistence. We 

 assert that the property of blackness, or of having woolly hair, 

 invariably coexists with the properties which, in common 

 language, or in the scientific classification that we adopt, are 

 taken to constitute the class crow, or the class negro. Now, 

 supposing blackness to be an ultimate property of black 

 objects, or woolly hair an ultimate property of the animals 

 which possess it; supposing that these properties are not 

 results of causation, are not connected with antecedent pheno- 

 mena by any law ; then if all crows are black, and all negroes 

 have woolly hair, these must be ultimate properties of the 

 Kind crow, or negro, or of some Kind which includes them. 

 If, on the contrary, blackness or woolly hair be an effect 

 depending on causes, these general propositions are manifestly 

 empirical laws ; and all that has already been said respecting 

 that class of generalizations may be applied without modifica- 

 tion to these. 



Now, we have seen that in the case of all compounds of 

 all things, in short, except the elementary substances and 

 primary powers of nature the presumption is, that the pro- 

 perties do really depend upon causes ; and it is impossible in 

 any case whatever to be certain that they do not. We there- 

 fore should not be safe in claiming for any generalization re- 

 specting the coexistence of properties, a degree of certainty to 

 which, if the properties should happen to be the result of 

 causes, it would have no claim. A generalization respecting 

 coexistence, or in other words respecting the properties of 

 Kinds, may be an ultimate truth, but it may, also, be merely a 

 derivative one ; and since, if so, it is one of those derivative 

 laws which are neither laws of causation, nor have been re- 

 solved into the laws of causation on which they depend, it can 

 possess no higher degree of evidence than belongs to an em- 

 pirical law. 



4. This conclusion will be confirmed by the considera- 



