EVIDENCE OF UNIVERSAL CAUSATION. 115 



could only afford results which were admissible con- 

 ditionally ; as showing what law the phenomenon under 

 investigation must follow if it followed any fixed law 

 at all. As, however, when the rules of correct induc- 

 tion had been conformed to, the result obtained never 

 failed to be verified by all subsequent experience ; 

 every such inductive operation had the effect of 

 extending the acknowledged dominion of general 

 laws, and bringing an additional portion of the experi- 

 ence of mankind to strengthen the evidence of the 

 universality of the law of causation: until now at 

 length we are fully warranted in considering that 

 law, as applied to all phenomena within the range of 

 human observation, to stand on an equal footing in 

 respect to evidence with the axioms of geometry 

 itself. 



4. I apprehend that the considerations which 

 give,, at the present day, to the proof of the law of 

 uniformity of succession as true of all phenomena 

 without exception, this character of completeness and 

 conclusiveness, are the following: First; that we 

 now know it directly to be true of far the greatest 

 number of phenomena; that there are none of which 

 we know it not to be true, the utmost that can be 

 said being that of some we cannot positively from 

 direct evidence affirm its truth; while phenomenon 

 after phenomenon, as they become better known to 

 us, are constantly passing from the latter class into 

 the former; and in all cases in which that transition 

 has not yet taken place, the absence of direct proof is 

 accounted for by the rarity or the obscurity of the 

 phenomena, our deficient means of observing them, or 

 the logical difficulties arising from the complication of 



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