52 INDUCTION. 



here a complex phenomenon, made up of heterogeneous 

 elements; the column of the atmosphere over any 

 particular place consisting of two parts, a column of 

 air, and a column of aqueous vapour mixed with it ; 

 and the change in the two together, manifested by a 

 fall of the barometer, and followed by rain, must be 

 either a change in one of these, or in the other, or in 

 both. We might, then, even in the absence of any other 

 evidence, form a reasonable presumption, from the 

 invariable presence of both these elements in the 

 antecedent, that the sequence is probably not an 

 ultimate law, but a result of the laws of the two 

 different agents : a presumption only to be destroyed 

 when we had made ourselves so well acquainted with 

 the laws of both, as to be able to affirm that those 

 laws could not by themselves produce the observed 

 result. 



7. There are but few known cases of succession 

 from very complex antecedents, which have not either 

 been actually accounted for from simpler laws, or 

 inferred with great probability (from the ascertained 

 existence of intermediate links of causation not yet 

 understood) to be capable of being so accounted for. 

 It is, therefore, highly probable that all sequences 

 from complex antecedents are thus resolvable, and that 

 ultimate laws are in all cases comparatively simple. 

 If there were not the other reasons already mentioned 

 for believing that the laws of organized nature are 

 resolvable into simpler laws, it would be almost a 

 sufficient reason that the antecedents in most of the 

 sequences are so very complex. 



There are appearances strongly favouring the 

 suspicion, that these phenomena are really resolvable 

 into much simpler laws than might at first be 



