EXPLANATION OF LAWS. 559 



to be extended by way of inference to any new class 

 of cases, different from those by the comparison of 

 which it was engendered. 



In all these three processes, laws are, as we have 

 seen, resolved into laws more general than themselves, 

 laws extending to all the cases which the former 

 extend to, and others besides. In the first two modes 

 they are also resolved into laws more certain, in other 

 words, more universally true than themselves ; they 

 are, in fact, proved not to be themselves laws of 

 nature, the character of which is to be universally 

 true, but results of laws of nature, which may be only 

 true conditionally, and for the most part. No differ- 

 ence of this sort exists in the third case ; since here 

 the partial laws are, in fact, the very same law as 

 the general one, and any exception to them would be 

 an exception to it too. 



By all the three processes, the range of deductive 

 science is extended; since the laws, thus resolved, 

 may be thenceforth deduced demonstratively from 

 the laws into which they are resolved. As already 

 remarked, the same deductive process which proves a 

 law or fact of causation, if unknown, serves to explain 

 it when known. 



The word explanation is here used in a somewhat 

 peculiar sense. What is called explaining one law of 

 nature by another, is but substituting one mystery for 

 another; and does nothing to render the general 

 course of nature other than mysterious : we can no 

 more assign a why for the more extensive laws than 

 for the partial ones. The explanation may substitute 

 a mystery which has become familiar, and has grown 

 to seem not mysterious, for one which is still strange. 

 And this is the meaning of explanation, in common 



