114 INDUCTION. 



one class of phenomena which, even in our own day, 

 at least one-half of the speculative world do not admit 

 to be governed by causes ; I mean human volitions. 

 These are believed, by the metaphysicians who espouse 

 the free-will doctrine, to be self-determining, self- 

 causing; that is, not caused by anything external to 

 themselves, not determined by any prior fact. It is 

 true that the real opinion of these philosophers does 

 not go quite so far as their words seem to imply ; they 

 do not in reality claim for this class of phenomena 

 much more than the absence of that mystical tie 

 which the word necessity seems to involve, and the 

 existence of which, even in the case of inorganic 

 matter, is but an illusion produced by language. But 

 their system of philosophy does not the less prove 

 that the existence of phenomena which are not rigo- 

 rously consequent upon any antecedents, does not 

 necessarily, even in the present state of our experi- 

 ence, appear an inadmissible paradox. 



The truth is, as M. Comte has well pointed out, 

 that (although the generalizing propensity must have 

 prompted mankind from almost the beginning of their 

 experience to ascribe all events to some cause more 

 or less mysterious) the conviction that phenomena 

 have invariable laws, and follow with regularity cer- 

 tain antecedent phenomena, was only acquired gradually; 

 and extended itself, as knowledge advanced, from one 

 order of phenomena to another, beginning with those 

 whose laws were most accessible to observation. This 

 progress has not yet attained its ultimate point; there 

 being still, as before observed, one class of phenomena, 

 the subjection of which to invariable laws is not yet 

 universally recognised. So long as any doubt hung 

 over this fundamental principle, the various Methods 

 of Induction which took that principle for granted 



