COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



day follows night only if certain other antece- 

 dents [the presence of the sun above the hori- 

 zon, and the absence of any eclipsing opaque 

 body from the direct path of the solar rays] 

 exist ; and where those antecedents existed, it 

 would follow in any case. No one, probably, 

 ever called night the cause of day ; mankind 

 must so soon have arrived at the very obvious 

 generalization, that the state of general illumi- 

 nation which we call day would follow from 

 the presence of a sufficiently luminous body, 

 whether darkness had preceded or not." 



Mr. Mill's further explanation of this point 

 is so luminous that I prefer to cite it in his own 

 words, rather than to abridge and dilute it. 

 "To some," says Mr. Mill, " it may appear 

 that the sequence between night and day being 

 invariable in our experience, we have as much 

 ground in this case as experience can give in 

 any case, for recognizing the two phenomena 

 as cause and effect ; and that to say that more 

 is necessary — to require a belief that the suc- 

 cession is unconditional, or in other words that 

 it would be invariable under all changes of cir- 

 cumstances, is to acknowledge in causation an 

 element of belief not derived from experience. 

 The answer to this is, that it is experience it- 

 self which teaches us that one uniformity of 

 sequence is conditional and another uncondi- 



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