CO-EXISTENCES INDEPENDENT OF CAUSATION. 407 



cnrrence, are either uniformities of succession or of co-existence. Uniform- 

 ities of succession are all comprehended under the law of causation and 

 its consequences. Every phenomenon has a cause, which it invariably fol- 

 lows ; and from this are derived other invariable sequences among the suc- 

 cessive stages of the same effect, as well as between the effects resulting 

 from causes which invariably succeed one another. 



In the same manner with these derivative uniformities of succession, a 

 great variety of uniformities of co-existence also take their rise. Co-ordi- 

 nate effects of the same cause naturally co-exist with one another. High 

 water at any point on the earth's surface, and high water at the point dia- 

 metrically opposite to it, are effects uniformly simultaneous, resulting from 

 the direction in which the combined attractions of the sun and moon act 

 upon the waters of the ocean. An eclipse of the sun to us, and an eclipse 

 of the earth to a spectator situated in the moon, are in like manner phe- 



stituted by the uniform sequences of special effects from special natural agencies ; that the 

 number of these natural agencies in the part of the universe known to us is not incalculable, 

 nor even extremely great ; that we have now reason to think that at least the far greater 

 number of them, if not separately, at least in some of the combinations into which they en- 

 ter, have been made sufficiently amenable to observation, to have enabled us actually to as- 

 certain some of their fixed laws ; and that this amount of experience justifies the same de- 

 gree of assurance that the course of nature is uniform throughout, which we previously had 

 of the uniformity of sequence among the phenomena best known to us. This view of the 

 subject, if correct, destroys the force of Dr. Ward's first argument. 



His second argument is, that many or most persons, both scientific and unscientific, believe 

 that there are well authenticated cases of breach in the uniformity of nature, namely, mira- 

 cles. Neither does this consideration touch what I have said in the text. I admit no other 

 uniformity in the events of nature than the law of Causation ; and (as I have explained in 

 the chapter of this volume which treats of the Grounds of Disbelief) a miracle is no excep- 

 tion to that law. In every case of alleged miracle, a new antecedent is affirmed to exist ; a 

 counteracting cause, namely, the volition of a supernatural being. To all, therefore, to whom 

 beings with superhuman power over nature are a vera causa, a miracle is a case of the Law 

 of Universal Causation, not a deviation from it. 



Dr. Ward's last, and as he says, strongest argument, is the familiar one of Reid, Stewart, and 

 their followers — that whatever knowledge experience gives us of the past and present, it gives 

 us none of the future. I confess that I see no force whatever in this argument. Wherein 

 does a future fact differ from a present or a past fact, except in their merely momentary re- 

 lation to tRe human beings at present in existence ? The answer made by Priestley, in his 

 Examination of Reid, seems to me sufficient, viz., that though we have had no experience of 

 what is future, we have had abundant experience of what was future. The "leap in the 

 dark" (as Professor Bain calls it) from the past to the future, is exactly as much in the 

 dark and no more, as the leap from a past which we have personally observed, to a past 

 which we have not. I agree with Mr. Bain in the opinion that the resemblance of what we 

 have not experienced to what we have, is, by a law of our nature, presumed through the 

 mere energy of the idea, before experience has proved it. This psychological truth, however, 

 is not, as Dr. Ward when criticising Mr. Bain appears to think, inconsistent with the logical 

 truth that experience does prove it. The proof comes after the presumption, and consists in 

 its invariable verification by experience when the experience arrives. The fact which while 

 it was future could not be observed, having as yet no existence, is always, when it becomes 

 present and can be observed, found conformable to the past. 



Dr. M'Cosh maintains (^Examination of Mr. J. S.Mills Philosophy,'^. 257) that the uni- 

 formity of the course of nature is a different thing from the law of causation ; and while he 

 allows that the former is only proved by a long continuance of experience, and that it is not 

 inconceivable nor necessarily incredible that there may be Avorlds in which it does not pre- 

 vail, he considers the law of causation to be known intuitively. There is, however, no other 

 uniformity in the events of nature than that which arises from the law of causation : so long 

 therefore as there remained any doubt that the course of nature was uniform throughout, at 

 least when not modified by the intei'vention of a new (supernatural) cause, a doubt was nec- 

 essarily implied, not indeed of the reality of causation, but of its universality. If the uni- 

 formity of the course of nature has any exceptions — if any events succeed one another without 

 fixed laws — to that extent the law of causation fails ; there are events which do not depend 

 on causes. 



