44 INDUCTION. 



laws of these causes and the fact of their coexist- 

 ence. 



Derivative laws, therefore, do not depend solely 

 upon the ultimate laws into which they are resolvable : 

 they mostly depend upon those ultimate law r s and an 

 ultimate fact ; namely, the mode of coexistence of 

 some of the original elements of the universe. The 

 ultimate laws of causation might be the same as at 

 present, and yet the derivative laws completely dif- 

 ferent, if the causes coexisted in different proportions, 

 or with any difference in those of their relations by 

 which the effects are influenced. If, for example, the 

 sun's attraction, and the original projectile force, had 

 existed in some other ratio to one another than they 

 did, (and we know of no reason why this should not 

 have been the case,) the derivative laws of the 

 heavenly motions might have been quite different 

 from what they are. The proportions which exist 

 happen to be such as to produce regular elliptical 

 motions ; any other proportions would have produced 

 different ellipses, or circular, or parabolic, or hyper- 

 bolic motions, but still regular ones ; because the 

 effects of each of the agents accumulate according to 

 an uniform law ; and two regular series of quantities, 

 when their corresponding terms are added, must pro- 

 duce a regular series of some sort, whatever the quan- 

 tities themselves are. 



3. Now this last-mentioned element in the 

 resolution of a derivative law, the element which is 

 not a law of causation but a collocation of causes, 

 cannot itself be reduced to any law. There is (as 

 formerly remarked*) no uniformity, no norma, prin- 



Supra, vol. i., p. 417. 



