THE LAWS OF SCIENCE 39 



there are certain relations between events *r 

 concerning which all men can agree. -*J 



Our_defimtion then limits science to the study of these 

 special relations between events. And this conclusion, 

 though the form in which it has been expressed and the 

 reasons alleged for it may be unfamiliar, is very well 

 known and widely recognized. For the relation of which 

 we have spoken is often called that of " cause and effect " ; 

 to say that, if a book falls off the table, it will make a 

 noise when it strikes the floor is much the same as to say 

 that the nojgfi^sjthe effect of the fall,_and the faJUhe^ause 

 of the noise. Again, assertions of cause and effect in 

 nature are often called " laws " or " laws of nature " ; 

 in fact, the assertion that a book, or any other object, 

 will fall if unsupported is one of the most familiar instances 

 that is often offered of one of the most widely known laws, 

 namely the law of gravitation. Accordingly, all that we 

 have said is that science studies cause and effect and that 

 it studies the laws of nature ; nothing can be more trite 

 than such a statement of the objects of science. Indeed, 

 I expect that some readers thought that a great deal of 

 unnecessary fuss was made in the previous chapter and 

 that all our difficulties about the relation between science 

 and nature would have vanished, if it had been said simply 

 that sci^ce^^judjed^jiot nature, but the laws of nature. 



However here, as so oitenTthe popular view, tfiough it 

 contains a large measure of truth, is nol the whole truth. 

 The meaning popularly attached to " cause and effect " 

 and to " laws " is too loose and vague ; " cause and 

 effect," in the conversational sense, includes some rela- 

 tions which are not studied by science and excludes some 

 that are ; the assertions which. are popularly regarded as 

 laws are not invariably scientific laws, and there are many 

 scientific laws which are not popularly termed so. The 

 value of our definition is that it will enable us to give a 

 more precise meaning to these terms, and to show clearly 



