COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



ment of the moral character of individuals — if 

 we possessed the means of measuring quantita- 

 tively the ratio of each set of antecedents to 

 its set of consequents, we might eliminate one 

 group after another, until at length a necessary 

 relation of sequence would be disclosed between 

 the resultant group of antecedents and conse- 

 quents. As Mr. Mill observes : " For every 

 event there exists some combination of objects 

 or events, some given concurrence of circum- 

 stances, positive and negative, the occurrence 

 of which is always followed by that phenome- 

 non. We may not have found out what this 

 concurrence of circumstances may be ; but we 

 never doubt that there is such a one, and that 

 it never occurs without having the phenomenon 

 in question as its effect or consequence." * Our 

 unhesitating assurance that " there is a law to 

 be found if we only knew how to find it" is 

 thus the foundation of all the canons of induc- 

 tive logic. The uniformity of the laws of na- 

 ture is elsewhere called by Mr. Mill " the major 

 premise of all inductions." The present analy- 

 sis further shows us that this uniformity of 

 law is resolvable into the persistence of relations 

 among forces, and is therefore an immediate 

 corollary from the persistence of force. 



Besides this purely philosophical corollary 

 from our fundamental axiom, we have to note 

 1 System of Logic, 6th edition, vol. i. p. 367. 

 152 



