XL] PHILOSOPHY OF INDUCTIVE INFERENCE. 221 



with part, and it could certainly draw inferences concern- 

 ing the similarity of forms, the coexistence of qualities, 

 or the preponderance of a particular kind of matter in 

 a changeless world. A solid universe, in at least approxi- 

 mate equilibrium, is not inconceivable, and then the rela- 

 tion of cause and effect would evidently be no more than 

 the relation of before and after. As nature exists, how- 

 ever, it is a progressive existence, ever moving and 

 changing as time, the great independent variable, pro- 

 ceeds. Hence it arises that we must continually compare 

 what is happening now with what happened a moment 

 before, and a moment before that moment, and so on, 

 until we reach indefinite periods of past time. A comet 

 is seen moving in the sky, or its constituent particles 

 illumine the heavens with their tails of fire. We cannot 

 explain the present movements of such a body without 

 supposing its prior existence, with a definite amount 

 of energy and a definite direction of motion ; nor can we 

 validly suppose that our task is concluded when we find 

 that it came wandering to our solar system through the 

 unmeasured vastness of surrounding space. Every event 

 must have a cause, and that cause again a cause, until 

 we are lost in the obscurity of the past, and are driven to 

 the belief in one First Cause, by whom the course of 

 nature was determined. 



Fallacious Use of the Term Cause. 



The words Cause and Causation have given rise to infinite 

 trouble and obscurity, and have in no slight degree retarded 

 the progress of science. From the time of Aristotle, the 

 work of philosophy has been described as the discovery of 

 the causes of things, and Francis Bacon adopted the notion 

 when he said " vere scire esse per causas scire." Even now 

 it is not uncommonly supposed that the knowledge of 

 causes is something different from other knowledge, and 

 consists, as it were, in getting possession of the keys of 

 nature. A singje word may thus act as a spell, and throw 

 the clearest intellect into confusion, as I have often thought 

 that Locke was thrown into confusion when endeavouring 

 to find a meaning for the word power. 1 In Mill's System of 



1 Etsay concerning Human Understanding, bk. ii. chap, xxi 



