146 EXPLANATIONS. 



only afford results Avhich were admissible con- 

 ditionally ; as showing what law the phenomenon 

 under investigation must follow if it followed any 

 fixed law at all. As, however, when the rules of 

 correct induction had been conformed to, the re- 

 sult obtained never failed to be verified by all 

 subsequent experience ; every such inductive ope- 

 ration had the effect of extending the acknow- 

 ledged dominion of general laws, and bringing an 

 additional portion of the experience of mankind to 

 strengthen the evidence of the universality of the 

 law of causation: until now at length ice are fully 

 warranted in considering that law, as applied to all 

 phenomena within the range of human observa- 

 tion, to stand on an equal footing in respect to evidence 

 with the axioms of geometry itself. 



" I apprehend that the considerations which 

 give, at the present day, to the proof of the law of 

 uniformity of succession as true of all phenomena 

 without exception, this character of completeness 

 and conclusiveness, are the following : — First ; that 

 we now know it directly to be true of by far the greatest 

 number of phenomena : that there are none of lohich 

 we know it not to be true, the utmost that can be 

 said being, that of some we cannot positively, 

 from direct evidence, affirm its truth ; while pheno- 



