LAW OF CAUSATION. 237 



lieve, will continue to, succeed. The invariable antecedent is termed the 

 cause ; the invariable consequent, the effect. And the universality of the 

 law of causation consists in this, that every consequent is connected in this 

 manner with some particular antecedent, or set of antecedents. Let the 

 fact be what it may, if it has begun to exist, it was preceded by some fact 

 or facts, with which it is invariably connected. For every event there ex- 

 ists some combination of objects or events, some given concurrence of cir- 

 cumstances, positive and negative, the occurrence of which is always fol- 

 lowed by that phenomenon. We may not have found out what this con- 

 currence of circumstances may be ; but we never doubt that there is such 

 a one, and that it never occurs without having the phenomenon in question 

 as its effect or consequence. On the universality of this truth depends the 

 possibility of reducing the inductive process to rules. The undoubted as- 

 surance we have that there is a law to be found if we only knew how to 

 find it, will be seen presently to be the source from which the canons of 

 the Inductive Logic derive their validity. 



§ 3. It is seldom, if ever, between a consequent and a single antecedent, 

 that this invariable sequence subsists. It is usually between a consequent 

 and the sum of several antecedents ; the concurrence of all of them being 

 requisite to produce, that is, to be certain of being followed by, the conse- 

 quent. In such cases it is very common to single out one only of the an- 

 tecedents under the denomination of Cause, calling the others merely Con- 

 ditions. Thus, if a person eats of a particular dish, and dies in consequence, 

 that is, would not have died if he had not eaten of it, people would be apt 

 to say that eating of that dish was the cause of his death. There needs 

 not, however, be any invariable connection between eating of the dish and 

 death ; but there certainly is, among the circumstances which took place, 

 some combination or other on which death is invariably consequent : as, 

 for instance, the act of eating of the dish, combined with a particular bod- 

 ily constitution, a particular state of present health, and perhaps even a 

 certain state of the atmosphere; the whole of which circumstances per- 

 haps constituted in this particular case the conditions of the phenomenon, 

 or, in other words, the set of antecedents which determined it, and but for 

 which it would not have happened. The real Cause, is the Avhole of these 

 antecedents ; and we have, philosophically speaking, no right to give the 

 name of cause to one of them, exclusively of the others. What, in the 

 3ase we have supposed, disguises the incorrectness of the expression, is 

 this : that the various conditions, except the single one of eating the food, 

 svere not events (that is, instantaneous changes, or successions of instan- 

 taneous changes) but states, possessing more or less of permanency ; and 

 night therefore have preceded the effect by an indefinite length of dura- 

 ion, for want of the event which was requisite to complete the required 

 joncurrence of conditions : while as soon as that event, eating the food, 

 )ccurs, no other cause is waited for, but the effect begins immediately to 

 ake place : and hence the appearance is presented of a more immediate 

 md close connection between the effect and that one antecedent, than be- 

 ween the effect and the remaining conditions. But though we may think 

 )roper to give the name of cause to that one condition, the fulfillment of 

 vhich completes the tale, and brings about the effect without further de- 

 ay; this condition has really no closer relation to the effect than any of 

 he other conditions has. All the conditions were equally indispensable to ! 

 he production of the consequent ; and the statement of the cause is incom- 



