EVIDENCE OF UNIVERSAL CAUSATION. II 



happened until many cases of causation, or, in other 

 words, many partial uniformities of sequence, had 

 become familiar. The more obvious of the particular 

 uniformities suggest and prove the general uniformity, 

 and that general uniformity, once established, enables 

 us to prove the remainder of the particular unifor- 

 mities of which it is made up. As, however, all 

 rigorous processes of induction presuppose the general 

 uniformity, our knowledge of the particular unifor- 

 mities from which it was first inferred was not, of 

 course, derived from rigid induction, but from the loose 

 and uncertain mode of induction per enumerationem 

 simplicem: and the law of universal causation, being 

 collected from results so obtained, cannot itself rest 

 upon any better foundation. 



2. This opens to us a consideration of very great 

 importance ; namely,, that induction by simple enume- 

 ration, or, in other words, generalization of an observed 

 fact from the mere absence of any known instances to 

 the contrary, is by no means the illicit logical process in 

 all cases which it is in most. It is delusive and insuffi- 

 cient exactly in proportion as the subject-matter of the 

 observation is special and limited in extent. As the 

 sphere widens, this unscientific method becomes less 

 and less liable to mislead ; and the most universal 

 class of truths, the law of causation for instance, and 

 the principles of number and of geometry, are duly 

 and satisfactorily proved by that method alone, nor 

 are they susceptible of any other proof. 



With respect to all the class of generalizations of 

 which we have recently treated, the uniformities which 

 depend upon causation, the truth of the remark just 

 made follows by obvious inference from the principles 



