mi. vi.] CAUSATION. 149 



the thinking process. As was shown in the first chapter on 

 the lielativity of Knowledge, this is the case with our inability 

 to conceive absolute beginning or absolute ending. We must 

 therefore, to a certain extent, accept the Hamiltonian doctrine 

 that our belief in the necessity and universality of causation 

 is due to an original impotence of the conceptive faculty ; 

 save that an ultimate psychoh >gical analysis obliges us to re- 

 gard this original impotence as simply the obverse of our 

 inability to transcend our experience. 



Here again we come upon a bit of common ground which 

 underlies two opposing philosophies. For our last sentence, 

 in its assertion and in its proviso, recognizes both aspects of the 

 universal truth of which Kant and Hamilton on the one hand, 

 and Hume and Mill on the other hand, have persisted in 

 recognizing only one aspect. Here again we see exemplified 

 what our sketch of the Newtonian discovery in the previous 

 chapter taught us, — namely, the value of that objective method 

 which, instead of ignoring an unexplained residuum, recog- 

 nizes it as justifying further research. The unexplained 

 residuum in the present case was the coexistence of an 

 element of necessity in a given belief with an experiential 

 origin for the belief. Following the subjective method, Hume 

 denied the necessity, Kant denied the experiential origin. 

 But the objective method, recognizing the coexistence of the 

 two as a fact to be accounted for, and employing a psycho- 

 logical analysis inaccessible to Hume and Kant, discovers that 

 the necessity of the belief and its experiential origin are 

 but two sides of the same fundamental fact. 



From the origin and justification of our belief in causation, 

 let us now pass to the contents of the belief. Since there 

 is nothing in the belief that has not been given in ex- 

 perience, let us endeavour to state what is and what is not 

 given in our experience of an act of causation. In the first 

 place sequence is clearly given in the phenomenon. " Even 

 granting that an effect may commence simultaneously with 



