240 INDUCTION. 



which notion, on the contrary, any one of the conditions, either positive or 

 negative, is found, on occasion, completely to accord.* 



* The assertion, that any and ever)' one of the conditions of a phenomenon may be and is, on 

 some occasions and for some purposes, spoken of as the cause, has been disputed by an intel- 

 ligent reviewer of this work in the Prospective Review (the predecessor of the justly esteemed 

 National Review'), wlio maintains that "we always apply the word cause rather to that ele- 

 ment in the antecedents which exercises force, and which would tend at all times to produce 

 the same or a similar effect to that which, under certain conditions, it would actually pro- 

 duce." And he says, that "every one would feel" the expression, that the cause of a surprise 

 was the sentinel's being oif his post, to be incorrect; but that the "allurement or force which 

 drew him off his post, might be so called, because in doing so it removed a resisting power 

 which would have prevented the surprise." I can not think that it would be wrong to say, 

 that the event took place because the sentinel was absent, and yet right to say that it took 

 place because he was bribed to be absent. Since the only direct effect of the bribe was his 

 absence, the bribe could be called the remote cause of the surprise, only on the supposition 

 that the absence was the proximate cause ; nor does it seem to me that any one (who had 

 not a theory to support) would use the one expression and reject the other. 



The reviewer observes, that when a person dies of poison, his possession of bodily organs is 

 a necessary condition, but that no one would ever speak of it as the cause. I admit the fact ; 

 but I believe the reason to be, that the occasion could never arise for so speaking of it; for 

 when in the inaccuracy of common discourse we are led to speak of some one condition of a 

 phenomenon as its cause, the condition so spoken of is always one which it is at least possi- 

 ble that the hearer may require to be informed of. The possession of bodily organs is a 

 known condition, and to give that as the answer, when asked the cause of a person's death, 

 would not supply the information sought. Once conceive that a doubt could exist as to his 

 having bodily organs, or that he were to be compared with some being who had them not, 

 and cases may be imagined in which it might be said that his possession of them was the 

 cause of his death. If Faust and Mephistopheles together took poison, it might be said that 

 Faust died because he was a human being, and had a body, while Mephistopheles survived 

 because he was a spirit. 



It is for the same reason that no one (as the reviewer remarks) "calls the cause of a leap, 

 the muscles or sinews of the body, though they are necessary conditions ; nor the cause of a 

 self-sacrifice, the knowledge which was necessary for it ; nor the cause of writing a book, that 

 a man has time for it, which is a necessary condition." These conditions (besides that they 

 are antecedent states, and not proximate antecedent events, and are therefore never the con- 

 ditions in closest apparent proximity to the effect) are all of them so obviously implied, that it 

 is hardly possible there should exist that necessity for insisting on them, which alone gives 

 occasion for speaking of a single condition as if it were the cause. Wherever this necessity 

 exists in regard to some one condition, and does not exist in regard to any other, I conceive 

 that it is consistent with usage, when scientific accuracy is not aimed at, to apply the name 

 cause to that one condition. If the only condition which can be supposed to be unknown is 

 a negative condition, the negative condition may be spoken of as the cause. It might be said 

 that a person died for want of medical advice : though this would not be likely to be said, un- 

 less the person was already understood to be ill, and in order to indicate that this negative cir- 

 cumstance was what made the illness fatal, and not the weakness of his constitution, or the 

 original virulence of the disease. It might be said that a person was drowned because he 

 could not swim ; the positive condition, namely, that he fell into the water, being already im- 

 plied in the word drowned. And here let me remark, that his falling into the water is in 

 this case the only positive condition : all the conditions not expressly or virtually included in 

 this (as that he could not swim, that nobody helped him, and so forth) are negative. Yet, if 

 it were simply said that the cause of a man's death was falling into the water, there would be 

 quite as great a sense of impropriety in the expression, as there would be if it were said that 

 the cause was his inability to swim ; because, though the one condition is positive and the oth- 

 er negative, it would be felt that neither of them was suflScient, without the other, to produce 

 death. 



With regard to the assertion that nothing is termed the cause, except the element which 

 exevts active force ; I waive the question as to the meaning of active force, and accepting the 

 phrase in its popular sense, I revert to a former example, and I ask, would it be more agree- 

 able to custom to say that a man fell because his foot slipped in climbing a ladder, or that he 

 fell because of his weight ? for his weight, and not the motion of his foot, was tlie active force 

 which determined his fall. If a person walking out in a frosty day, stumbled and fell, it 

 might be said that he stumbled because the ground was slippery, or because he was not suf- 

 ficiently careful : but few people, I suppose, would say, that he stumbled because he walked. 

 Yet the only active force concerned was that which he exerted in walking : the others were 



