LAW OF CAUSATION. 197 



concerned in the question. The only notion of a cause, which the 

 theory of induction requires, is such a notion as can be gained from 

 experience. The Law of Causation, the recognition of wliicli is the 

 main pillar of inductive philosophy, is but the familiar truth, that inva- 

 riability of succession is found by observation to obtain between every 

 fact in nature and some other fact which has preceded it ; independ- 

 ently of all consideration respecting the ultimate mode of production 

 of phenomena, and of every other question regarding the nature of 

 " Things in themselves." 



Between the phenomena, then, which exist at any instant, and the 

 phenomena which exist at the succeeding instant, there is an invariable 

 order of succession ; and, as wo said in speaking of the general uni- 

 formity of the course of nature, this web is composed of separate fibres ; 

 this collective order is made up of particular sequences, obtaining inva- 

 riably among the separate parts. To certain facts, certain facts always 

 do, and, as we believe, always will, succeed. The invariable antece- 

 dent is termed the cause ; the invariable consequent, the effect. And 

 the universality of the law of causation consists in this, that every con- 

 sequent is connected in this manner with some particular antecedent, 

 or set of antecedents. Let the fact be what it may, if it has begun to 

 exist, it was preceded by some fact or facts, with which it is invaria- 

 bly connected. For every event, there exists some combination of 

 objects or events, some given concurrence of circumstances, positive 

 and negative, the occurrence of which will always be followed by that 

 phenomenon. 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. Upon the universality of this truth de- 

 pends the possibility of reducing the inductive process to rules. The 

 undoubted assurance we have that there is a law to be found if we only 

 knew how to find it, will be seen presently to be the source from which 

 the canons of the Inductive Logic derive their validity. 



§ 3. It is seldom, if ever, between a consequent and one single an- 

 tecedent, that this invariable sequence subsists. It is usually between 

 a consequent and the sum of several antecedents ; the concurrence of 

 them all being requisite to produce, that is, to be certain of being fol- 

 lowed by, the consequent. In such cases it is very common to single 

 out one only of the antecedents under the denomination of Cause, call- 

 ing the others merely Conditions. Thus if a man eats of a particular 

 dish, and dies in consequence, that is, would not have died if be had 

 not eaten of it, people would be apt to say that eating of that dish 

 was the cause of his death. There needs not, however, be any inva- 

 riable connexion between eating of the dish and death ; but thex'e 

 certainly is, among the circumstances which took place, some combi- 

 nation or other upon which death is invariably consecjuent : as, for 

 instance, the act of eating of the dish, comliined with a particular bodily 

 constitution, a particular state of present health, and perhaps even a 

 certain state of the atmosphere ; the whole of which circumstances 

 perhaps constituted in this particular case the conditions of the phenom- 

 enon, or in other words the set of antecedents which determined it, 

 and but for which it would not have happened. The real Cause, is 

 the vyhole of these antecedents ; and we have, philosophically speak- 



