198 INDUCTION. 



ino-, no right to give the name of cause to one of them, exclusively of 

 the others. What, in the case we have supposed, disguises the incor- 

 rectness of the expression, is this : that the various conditions, except 

 the single one of eating the food, were not events (that is, instantaneous 

 chano-es, or successions of instantaneous changes) but states, possessing 

 more or less of permanency ; and might therefore have preceded the 

 effect by an indefinite length of duration, for want of the event which 

 was requisite to complete the required concurrence of conditions : 

 while as soon as that event, eating the food, occurs, no other cause is 

 waited for, but the effect begins immediately to take place : and hence 

 the appearance is presented of a more immediate and closer connexion 

 between the effect and that one antecedent, than between the effect 

 and the remaining conditions. But although we may think proper to 

 give the name of cause to that one condition, the fulfilment of which 

 completes the tale, and brings about the effect without further delay ; 

 this condition has really no closer relation to the effect than any of the 

 other conditions has. The production of the consequent required 

 that they should all exist immediately previous, though not that they 

 should all begi7i to exist immediately previous. The statement of the 

 cause is incomplete, unless in some shape or other we introduce all 

 the conditions. A man takes mercury, goes out of doors, and catches 

 cold. We say, perhaps, that the cause of his taking cold was ex- 

 posure to the air. It is clear, however, that his having taken mercury 

 may have been a necessary condition of his catching cold; and though 

 it might consist with usage to say that the caiise of his attack was ex- 

 posure to the air, to be accurate we ought to say that the cause was 

 exposure to the air while under the effect of mercury. 



If we do not, when aiming at accuracy, enumerate all the condi- 

 tions, it is only because some of them will in most cases be imder- 

 stood without being expressed, or because for the purpose in view 

 they may without detriment be overlooked. For example, when we 

 say, the cause of a man's death was that his foot slipped in climbing a 

 ladder, we omit as a thing unnecessary to be stated the circumstance 

 of his weight, though quite as indispensable a condition of the effect 

 which took place. When we say that the assent of the crown to a 

 bill makes it law, we mean that the assent, being never given until all 

 the other conditions are fulfilled, makes up the sum of the conditions, 

 although no one now regards it as the principal one. When the deci- 

 sion of a legislative assembly has been detennined by the casting vote 

 of the chaimian, we often say that this one person was the cause of all 

 the effects which resulted from the enactment. Yet we do not really 

 suppose that his single vote contributed more to the result than that 

 of any other person who voted in the affirmative ; but, for the purpose 

 we have in view, which is that of fixing him with the responsibility, the 

 share which any other person took in the transaction is not material. 



In all these instances the fact which was dignified by the name of 

 cause, was the one condition which came last into existence. But it 

 must not be supposed that in the employment of the term this or any 

 other rule is always adhered to. Nothing can better show the absence 

 of any scientific ground for the distinction between the cause of a phe- 

 nomenon and its conditions, than the capricious manner in which we 

 select from among the conditions that which we choose to denominate 

 the cause. However numerous the conditions may be, there is hardly 



