CHAPTER XVII. 

 OF CHANCE, AND ITS ELIMINATION. 



$ I. CONSIDERING, then, as empirical laws only 

 those observed uniformities respecting which the 

 question whether they are laws of causation must 

 remain undecided until they can be explained deduc- 

 tively, or until some means are found of applying the 

 Method of Difference to the case ; it has been shown 

 in the preceding chapter, that until an uniformity can, 

 in one or the other of these modes, be taken out 

 of the class of empirical laws, and brought either into 

 that of laws of causation or of the demonstrated 

 results of laws of causation, it cannot with any 

 assurance be pronounced true beyond the local and 

 other limits within which it has been found so by 

 actual observation. It remains to consider how we 

 are to assure ourselves of its truth even within those 

 limits ; after what quantity of experience a generaliza- 

 tion which rests solely upon the Method of Agree- 

 ment, can be considered sufficiently established, even 

 as an empirical law. In a former chapter, when 

 treating of the Methods of Direct Induction, we 

 expressly reserved this question*, and the time is 

 now come for endeavouring to solve it. 



We found that the Method of Agreement has the 

 defect of not proving causation, and can therefore 

 only be employed for the ascertainment of empirical 

 laws. But we found, moreover, that besides this 



Supra, vol. i., p. 510. 



