LAW OF CAUSATION. 



2X1 



quite certain and quite universal, 

 tnen by means of these uniformities 

 we may be able to raise multitudes 

 of other inductions to the same point 

 in the scale. For if we can show, 

 with respect to any inductive infer- 

 ence, that either it must be true, or 

 one of these certain and universal 

 inductions must admit of an excep- 

 tion, the former generalisation will 

 attain the same certainty, and inde- 

 feasibleness within the bounds as- 

 signed to it, which are the attributes 

 of the latter. It will be proved to 

 be a law ; and if not a result of other 

 and simpler laws, it Mrill be a law of 

 nature. 



There are such certain and uni- 

 versal inductions ; and it is because 

 there are such, that a Logic of In- 

 duction is possible. 



CHAPTER V. 



OF THE LAW OF UNIVERSAL CAUSATION. 



§ I, The phenomena of nature 

 exist in two distinct relations to one 

 another ; that of simultaneity, and 

 that of succession. Every pheno- 

 menon is related, in an uniform man- 

 ner, to some phenomena that co-exist 

 with it, and to some that have pre- 

 ceded and ^vill follow it. 



Of the uniformities which exist 

 among synchronous phenomena, the 

 most important, on every account, 

 are the laws of number ; and next 

 to them those of space, or, in other 

 words, of extension and figure. The 

 laws of number are common to syn- 

 chronous and successive phenomena. 

 That two and two make four, is 

 equally true whether the second two 

 follow the first two or accompany 

 them. It is as true of days and 

 yeare as of feet and inches. The 

 laws of extension and figure (in other 

 words, the theorems of geometry, from 

 its lowest to its highest branches) are, 

 on the contrary, laws of simultaneous 

 phenomena only. The various parts 

 of space, and of the objects which are 



said to fill space, co-exist; and the 

 unvarying laws which are the subject 

 of the science of geometry are an 

 expression of the mode of their co- 

 existence. 



This is a class of laws, or, in other 

 words, of uniformities, for the com- 

 prehension and proof of which it is 

 not necessary to suppose any lapse of 

 time, any variety of facts or events 

 succeeding one another. The pro- 

 positions of geometry are indepen- 

 dent of the succession of events. All 

 things which possess extension, or, 

 in other words, which fill space, are 

 subject to geometrical laws. Pos- 

 sessing extension, they possess figure; 

 possessing figure, they must possess 

 some figure in particular, and have 

 all the properties which geometry 

 assigns to that figure. If one body 

 be a sphere and another a cylinder, 

 of equal height and diameter, the 

 one will be exactly two-thirds of the 

 other, let the nature and quality of 

 the material be what it wilL Again, 

 each body, and each point of a body, 

 must occupy some place or position 

 among other bodies ; and the position 

 of two bodies relatively to each other, 

 of whatever nature the bodies be, 

 may be unerringly inferred from the 

 position of each of them relatively to 

 any third body. 



In the laws of number, then, and 

 in those of space, we recognise in the 

 most unqualified manner the rigorous 

 universality of which we are in quest. 

 Those laws have been in all ages the 

 type of certainty, the standard of 

 comparison for all inferior degrees of 

 evidence. Their invariability is so 

 perfect, that it renders us unable even 

 to conceive any exception to them ; 

 and philosophers have been led, though 

 (as I have endeavoured to show) 

 erroneously, to consider their evi- 

 dence as lying not in experience, but 

 in the original constitution of the in- 

 tellect. If, therefore, from the laws 

 of space and number we were able 

 to deduce uniformities of any other 

 description, this would be conclusive 

 evidence to us that those other uni- 



