COEXISTENCES INDEPENDENT OF CAUSATION. 129 



the improbability that crows of any other colour 

 should have existed to the present time without our 

 being aware of it. Let us state the question in this 

 last mode, and consider what is implied in the suppo- 

 sition that there may be crows which are not black, 

 and under what conditions we can be justified in 

 regarding this as incredible. 



If there really exist crows which are not black, 

 one of two things must be the fact. Either the cir- 

 cumstance of blackness, in all crows hitherto observed, 

 must be, as it were, an accident, not connected with 

 any distinction of Kind ; or if it be a property of Kind, 

 the crows which are not black must be a new Kind, a 

 Kind hitherto overlooked, though coming under the 

 same general description by which crows have hitherto 

 been characterised. The first supposition would be 

 proved true if we were to discover casually a white 

 crow among black ones, or if it were found that black 

 crows sometimes turn white. The second would 

 be shown to be. the fact if in Australia or Central 

 Africa a species or a race of white or grey crows were 

 found to prevail. 



6. The former of these suppositions necessarily 

 implies, that the colour is an effect of causation. If 

 blackness, in the crows in which it has been observed, 

 be not a property of Kind, but can be present or 

 absent without any difference, generally, in the pro- 

 perties of the object ; then it is not an ultimate fact 

 in the individuals themselves, but is certainly de- 

 pendent upon a cause. There are, no doubt, many 

 properties which vary from individual to individual of 

 the same Kind, even the same infima species, or lowest 

 Kind. A flower may be either white or red, without 

 differing in any other respect. But these properties 



VOL. II. K 



