LAW OF CAUSATION. 239 



other body. Accordingly we may say, and the expression would be con- 

 fessedly correct, that the cause of the stone's falling is its being within the 

 sphere of the earth's attraction. We proceed to a further condition. The 

 stone is immersed in water: it is therefore a condition of its reaching the 

 ground, that its specific gravity exceed that of the surrounding fluid, or in 

 other words that it surpass in weight an equal volume of water. Accord- 

 ingly any one would be acknowledged to speak correctly who said, that the 

 cause of the stone's going to the bottom is its exceeding in specific gravity 

 the fluid in which it is immersed. 



Thus we see that each and every condition of the phenomenon may be 

 taken in its turn, and, with equal propriety in common parlance, but with 

 equal impropriety in scientific discourse, may be spoken of as if it were the 

 entire cause. And in practice, that particular condition is usually styled 

 the cause, whose share in the matter is superficially the most conspicuous, 

 or whose requisiteness to the production of the effect we happen to be in- 

 sisting on at the moment. So great is the force of this last consideration, 

 that it sometimes induces us to give the name of cause even to one of the 

 negative conditions. We say, for example, The army was surprised be- 

 cause the sentinel was off his post. But since the sentinel's absence was 

 not what created the enemy, or put the soldiers asleep, how did it cause 

 them to be surprised? All that is really meant is, that the event would 

 not have happened if he had been at his duty. His being off his post was 

 no producing cause, but the mere absence of a preventing cause : it was 

 simply equivalent to his non-existence. From nothing, from a mere nega- 

 tion, no consequences can proceed. All effects, are connected, by the law 

 of causation, with some set oi positive conditions; negative ones, it is true, 

 being almost always required in addition. In other words, every fact or 

 phenomenon which has a beginning, invariably arises when some certain 

 combination of positive facts exists, provided certain other positive facts 

 do not exist. 



There is, no doubt, a tendency (which our first example, that of death 

 from taking a particular food, sufficiently illustrates) to associate the idea 

 of causation with the proximate antecedent event, rather than with any of 

 the antecedent states, or permanent facts, which may happen also to be 

 conditions of the phenomenon ; the reason being that the event not only 

 exists, but begins to exist immediately previous; while the other condi- 

 tions may have pre-existed for an indefinite time. And this tendency 

 shows itself very visibly in the different logical fictions which are resorted 

 to, even by men of science, to avoid the necessity of giving the name of 

 cause to any thing which had existed for an indeterminate length of time 

 before the effect. Thus, rather than say that the earth causes the fall of 

 bodies, they ascribe it to a force exerted by the earth, or an attraction by 

 the earth, abstractions M'hich they can represent to themselves as exhausted 

 by each effort, and therefore constituting at each successive instant a fresh 

 fact, simultaneous with, or only immediately preceding, the effect. Inas- 

 much as the coming of the circumstance which completes the assemblage 

 of conditions, is a change or event, it thence happens that an event is iil- 

 ways the antecedent in closest apparent proximity to the consequent : and 

 this may account for the illusion which disposes us to look upon the j^rox- 

 imate event as standing more peculiarly in the position of a cause than any 

 of the antecedent states. But even this peculiarity, of being in closer prox- 

 imity to the effect than any other of its conditions, is, as we have already 

 seen, far from being necessary to the common notion of a cause; with 



