LAW OF CAUSATION. 403 



this last consideration, that it often induces us to 

 give the name of cause even to one of the negative 

 conditions. We say, for example, The cause of the 

 army's being surprised was the sentinel's being off his 

 post. But since the sentinel's absence was not what 

 created the enemy, or made the soldiers to be asleep, 

 how did it cause them to be surprised ? All that is 

 really meant is, that the event would not have happened 

 if he had been at his duty. His being off his post was no 

 producing cause, but the mere absence of a preventing 

 cause : it was simply equivalent to his non-existence. 

 From nothing, from a mere negation, no conse- 

 quences can proceed. All effects are connected, by the 

 law of causation, with some set of positive conditions; 

 negative ones, it is true, being almost always required 

 in addition. In other words,, every fact or pheno- 

 menon which has a beginning, invariably arises when 

 some certain combination of positive facts exists, pro- 

 vided certain other positive facts do not exist. 



Since, then, mankind are accustomed, with ac- 

 knowledged propriety so far as the ordinances of 

 language are concerned, to give the name of cause 

 to almost any one of the conditions of a phenomenon, 

 or any portion of the whole number, arbitrarily 

 selected, without excepting even those conditions 

 which are purely negative, and in themselves inca- 

 pable of causing anything; it will probably be ad- 

 mitted without longer discussion, that no one of the 

 conditions has more claim to that title than another, 

 and that the real cause of the phenomenon is the 

 assemblage of all its conditions. There is, no doubt, 

 a tendency (which our first example, that of death 

 from taking a particular food, sufficiently illustrates) 

 to associate the idea of causation with the proxi- 

 mate antecedent event, rather than with any of the 



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