LAW OF CAUSATION. 401 



of a legislative assembly has been determined by the 

 casting vote of the chairman, we often say that this one 

 person was the cause of all the effects which resulted 

 from the enactment. Yet we do not really suppose 

 that his single vote contributed more to the result 

 than that of any other person who voted in the 

 affirmative ; but, for the purpose we have in view, 

 which is that of fixing him with the responsibility, the 

 share which any other person took in the transaction 

 is not material. 



In all these instances the fact which was dignified by 

 the name of cause, was the one condition which came 

 last into existence. But it must not be supposed 

 that in the employment of the term this or any other 

 rule is always adhered to. Nothing can better show 

 the absence of any scientific ground for the distinction 

 between the cause of a phenomenon and its conditions, 

 than the capricious manner in which we select from 

 among the conditions that which we choose to deno- 

 minate the cause. However numerous the conditions 

 may be, there is hardly any of them which may not, 

 according to the purpose of our immediate discourse, 

 obtain that nominal pre-eminence. This will be seen 

 by analyzing the conditions of some one familiar 

 phenomenon. For example, a stone thrown into 

 water falls to the bottom. What are the conditions of 

 this event ? In the first place there must be a stone, 

 and water, and the stone must be thrown into the 

 water ; but, these suppositions forming part of the 

 enunciation of the phenomenon itself, to include them 

 also among the conditions would be a vicious tauto- 

 logy, and this class of conditions, therefore, have 

 never received the name of cause from any but the 

 schoolmen, by whom they were called the material 

 cause, causa materialis . The next condition is, there 



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