EVIDENCE OF UNIVERSAL CAUSATION. 401 



US, or which mankind in general, can have made. We arrive at this uni- 

 versal law, by genei-alization from many laws of inferior generality. We 

 should never have had the notion of causation (in the philosophical meaning 

 of the term) as a condition of all phenomena, unless many cases of causation, 

 or in other words, many partial uniformities of sequence, had previously be- 

 come familiar. The more obvious of the particular uniformities suggest, 

 and give evidence of, the general uniformity, and the general uniformity, once 

 established, enables us to prove the remainder of the particular uniformities 

 of which it is made up. As, however, all rigorous processes of induction 

 presuppose the general uniformity, our knowledge of the particular uniform- 

 ities from which it was first inferred was not, of course, derived from rigor- 

 ous induction, but from the loose and uncertain mode of induction per enu- 

 merationem simplicem/ and the law of universal causation, being collected 

 from results so obtained, can not itself rest on any better foundation. 



It would seem, therefore, that induction per enumerationem simplicem 

 not only is not necessarily an illicit logical process, but is in reality the only 

 kind of induction possible ; since the more elaborate process depends for 

 its validity on a law, itself obtained in that inartificial mode. Is there not 

 then an inconsistency in contrasting the looseness of one method with the 

 rigidity of another, when that other is indebted to the looser method for 

 its own foundation ? 



The inconsistency, however, is only apparent. Assuredly, if induction 

 by simple enumeration were an invalid process, no pi'ocess grounded on 

 it could be valid ; just as no reliance could be placed on telescopes, if we 

 could not trust our eyes. But though a valid process, it is a fallible one, 

 and fallible in very different degrees : if, therefore, we can substitute for 

 the more fallible forms of the process, an operation grounded on the same 

 process in a less fallible form, we shall have effected a very material im- 

 provement. And this is what scientific induction does. 



A mode of concluding from experience must be pronounced untrust- 

 worthy when subsequent experience refuses to confirm it. According to 

 this criterion, induction by simple enumeration — in other words, generaliza- 

 tion of an observed fact from the mere absence of any known instance to 

 the contrary — affords in general a precarious and unsafe ground of assur- 

 ance ; for such generalizations are incessantly discovered, on further expe- 

 rience, to be false. Still, however, it affords some assurance, sufliicient, in 

 many cases, for the ordinary guidance of conduct. It would be absurd to 

 say, that the generalizations arrived at by mankind in the outset of their 

 experience, such as these — food nourishes, fire burns, water drowns — were 

 unworthy of reliance.* There is a scale of trustworthiness in the results 



* It deseiTes remark, that these earlj generalizations did not, like scientific inductions, pre- 

 suppose causation. What they did presuppose, was uniformity in physical facts. But the ob- 

 servers were as ready to presume uniformity in the co-existence of facts as in the sequences. 

 On the other hand, they never thought of assuming that this uniformity was a principle per- 

 vading all nature : their generalizations did not imply that there was uniformity in every thing, 

 but only that as much uniformity as existed within their observation, existed also beyond it. 

 The induction, fire bums, does not require for its validity that all nature should observe uni- 

 form laws, but only that there should be uniformity in one particular class of natural phe- 

 nomena ; the effects of fire on the senses and on combustible substances. And uniformity to 

 this extent was not assumed, anterior to the experience, but proved by the experience. The 

 same observed instances which proved the naiTower truth, proved as much of the wider one as 

 corresponded to it. It is from losing sight of this fact, and considering the law of causation 

 in its full extent as necessarily presupposed in the very earliest generalizations, that persons 

 have been led into the belief that the law of causation is known a priori, and is not itself a 

 conclusion from experience. 



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