SECTION 11,-CAUSAL ENQUIRIES. 87 



cerning their causes, it cannot be said to deal exclusively with 

 the latter. A review of modern science appears to confirm 

 this. The determination of the nature and contents of geo- 

 logical strata ; of the distribution of sea and land, of mountain 

 ranges, earthquakes, and of volcanic craters and areas ; or the 

 attempt to produce and reduce organic compounds, and ascer- 

 tain their qualities and their internal arrangement, and to dis- 

 cover the existential relations of the elements; or the efforts 

 to ascertain the composition and the structure of protoplasm, 

 the cell nucleus, and the cytoplasm; or the investigations into 

 the nature of magnetic and electrical phenomena, or those 

 connected with the origin and evolution of life and of human 

 societies all imply that men of science are frequently employed 

 in discovering and in precisely defining properties, quantities, 

 composition, and the like, of objects, as distinguished from 

 causes. 



29. (d) Facts should be studied both Statically and Dyna- 

 mically. When a student examines a phenomenon, he strives 

 to understand it in all its aspects. The relation of this pheno- 

 menon to other phenomena, and its origin, development, in- 

 fluence, transformation, and end, form an integral portion of 

 the aim of his study. He who on principle only studied facts 

 statically or dynamically, would represent a caricature of the 

 man of science. Ultimately, therefore, scientific enquiries cannot 

 be divided into static and dynamic ones those concerned with 

 the discovery of laws of nature and the causal explanation of 

 facts, nor can we, generally speaking, separate static from 

 dynamic fact. The office of the investigator is to comprehend 

 phenomena in all their particularity and bearings, and not only 

 to determine the law of their succession. Mill's insistence on 

 the causal element, to which alone his Canons have reference, 

 is probably due to his eminent predecessor, Herschel, who 

 himself follows Bacon therein. According to Herschel, "the 

 first thing that a philosophic mind considers when any new 

 phenomenon presents itself is its explanation, or reference to 

 an immediate producing cause". (Discourse, [137.].) But the 

 nature of the "new phenomenon" needs to be determined 

 with fair accuracy before we search for its explanation; else 

 we are ignorant of what it is we are seeking the explanation of. 



30. (e) Facts and their Relations. The study of a phe- 

 nomenon entails the study of its relations to preceding, accom- 

 panying, and succeeding phenomena. Whatever causes are at 

 work, will be thus laid bare in the course of its examination. 



31. (/) Introductory Study of Static Aspects. From the 

 foregoing considerations it follows that so long as the principal 

 static elements of a phenomenon are not ascertained, the 

 phenomenon's relations to other phenomena or to its past and 

 future will be almost certainly shrouded in obscurity. Hence 

 the study of causes should be normally preceded by an intro- 



