COEXISTENCES INDEPENDENT OF CAUSATION. 133 



as certain as laws of nature, or rather, at which there 

 is no longer any distinction between empirical laws 

 and laws of nature. As empirical laws approach this 

 point, in other words, as they rise in their degree of 

 generality, they become more certain; their univer- 

 sality may be more strongly relied upon. For, in 

 the first place, if they are results of causation (which, 

 even in the class of uniformities treated of in the 

 present chapter, we never can be certain that they 

 are not) the more general they are, the greater is 

 proved to be the space over which the necessary 

 collocations prevail, and within which no causes exist 

 capable of counteracting the unknown causes upon 

 which the empirical law depends. To say that any- 

 thing is an invariable property of some very limited 

 class of objects, is to say that it invariably accompa- 

 nies some very numerous and complex group of dis- 

 tinguishing properties; which, if causation be at all 

 concerned in the matter, argues a combination of 

 many causes, and therefore a very great liability to 

 counteraction ; while the comparatively narrow range 

 of the observations renders it impossible to predict to 

 what extent unknown counteracting causes may be 

 distributed throughout nature. But when a genera- 

 lization has been found to hold good of a very large 

 proportion of all things whatever, it is already proved 

 that nearly all the causes which exist in nature have 

 no power over it; that very few changes in the com- 

 bination of causes can affect it; since the greater 

 number of possible combinations must have already 

 existed in some one or other of the instances in which 

 it has been found true. If, therefore, any empirical 

 law is a result of causation, the more general it is, the 

 more it may be depended upon. And even if it be 

 no result of causation, but an ultimate coexistence, 



