LAW OF CAUSATION. 247 



they terra the Laws of Phenomena, and the investigation of causes ; a 

 phraseology, as I conceive, not philosophically sustainable, inasmuch as the 

 ascertainment of causes, such causes as the human faculties can ascertain, 

 namely, causes which are themselves phenomena, is, therefore, merely the 

 ascertainment of other and more universal Laws of Phenomena. And let 

 me here observe, that Dr. Whewell, and in some degree even Sir John 

 Herschel, seem to have misunderstood the meaning of those writers who, 

 like M. Comte, limit the sphere of scientific investigation to Laws of Phe- 

 nomena, and speak of the inquiry into causes as vain and futile. The 

 causes which M. Comte designates as inaccessible, are efficient causes. The 

 investigation of physical, as opposed to efficient, causes (including the study 

 of all the active forces in Nature, considered as facts of observation) is as 

 important a part of M. Comte's conception of science as of Dr. AVhewell's. 

 His objection to the word ca.use is a mere matter of nomenclature, in which, 

 as a matter of nomenclature, I consider him to be entirely wrong. " Those," 

 it is justly remarked by Mr. Bailey,* " who, like M. Comte, object to desig- 

 nate events as causes, are objecting without any real ground to a mere but 

 extremely convenient generalization, to a very useful common name, the 

 employment of which involves, or needs involve, no particular theory." To 

 which it may be added, that by rejecting this form of expression, M. Comte 

 leaves himself without any term for marking a distinction which, however 

 incorrectly expressed, is not only real, but is one of the fundamental dis- 

 tinctions in science; indeed it is on this alone, as we shall hereafter find, 

 that the possibility rests of framing a rigorous Canon of Induction. And 

 as things left without a name are apt to be forgotten, a Canon of that de- 

 scription is not one of the many benefits which the philosophy of Induction 

 has received from M. Comte's great powers. 



§ 1. Does a cause always stand with its effect in the relation of anteced- 

 ent and consequent? Do we not often say of two simultaneous facts that 

 they are cause and effect — as when we say that fire is the cause of warmth, 

 the sun and moisture the cause of vegetation, and the like? Since a cause 

 does not necessarily perish because its effect has been produced, the two 

 things do very generally co-exist; and there are some appearances, and 

 some common expressions, seeming to imply not only that causes may, but 

 that they must, be contemporaneous with their effects. Cessante causd 

 cessat et effectus, has been a dogma of the schools: the necessity for the 

 continued existence of the cause in order to the continuance of the effect, 

 seems to have been once a generally received doctrine. Kepler's numerous 

 attempts to account for the motions of the heavenly bodies on mechanical 

 principles, were rendered abortive by his always supposing that the agency 

 which set those bodies in motion must continue to operate in order to keep 

 up the motion which it at first produced. Yet there were at all times 

 many familiar instances of the continuance of effects, long after their causes 

 had ceased. A coup de soleil gives a person brain-fever : will the fever go 

 off as soon as he is moved out of the sunshine ? A sword is run through 

 his body : must the sword remain in his body in order that he may con- 

 tinue dead? A plowshare once made, remains a plowshare, without any 

 continuance of heating and hammering, and even after the man who heat- 

 ed and hammered it has been gathered to his fathers. On the other hand, 

 the pressure which forces up the mercury in an exhausted tube must be 



* Letters on the Philosophy of the Human Mind, First Series, p. 219. 



