LAW OF CAUr ATION. 



4t3 



since after all it asserts only this : 

 *'it is a law that every event depends 

 on some law : " " it is a law that there 

 is a law for everything," We must 

 not, however, conclude that the gene- 

 rality of the principle is merely verbal ; 

 it will be found on inspection to be no 

 vague or unmeaning assertion, but a 

 most important and really fundamen- 

 tal truth. 



§ 2. The notion of Cause being the 

 root of the whole theory of Induction, 

 it is indispensable that this ideashould, 

 at the very outset of our inquiry, be, 

 with the utmost practicable degree 

 of precision, fixed and determined. 

 If, indeed, it Avere necessary for the 

 purpose of inductive logic that the 

 strife should be quelled which has 

 so long raged among the dififerent 

 schools of metaphysicians respecting 

 the origin and analysis of our idea of 

 causation, the promulgation, or at 

 least the general reception, of a true 

 theory of induction might be con- 

 sidered, desperate for a long time to 

 come. But the science of the Investi- 

 gation of Truth by means of Evidence 

 is happily independent of many of the 

 controversies which perplex the science 

 of the ultimate constitution of the 

 human mind, and is under no neces- 

 sity of pushing the analysis of mental 

 phenomena to that extreme limit 

 which alone ought to satisfy a meta- 

 phvsician. 



I premise, then, that when in the 

 course of this inquiry I speak of the 

 cause of any phenomenon, I do not 

 mean a cause which is not itself a 

 phenomenon ; I make no research into 

 the ultimate or ontological cause of 

 anything. To adopt a distinction 

 familiar in the writings of the Scotch 

 metaphysicians, and especially of Reid, 

 the causes with which I concern my- 

 self are not efficient, hut physical causes. 

 They are causes in that sense alone 

 in which one physical fact is said to 

 be the cause of another. Of the effi- 

 cient causes of phenomena, or whether 

 any such causes exist at all, I am not 

 called upon to give an opinion. The 



notion of causation is deemed by the 

 schools of metaphysics most in vogue 

 at the present moment to imply a 

 mysterious and most powerful tie, 

 such as cannot, or at least does not, 

 exist between any physical fact and 

 that other physical fact on which it is 

 invariably consequent, and which is 

 popularly termed its cause : and thence 

 is deduced the supposed necessity of 

 ascending higher, into the essences 

 and inherent constitution of things, to 

 find the true cause, the cause which 

 is not only followed by, but actually 

 produces, the effect. No such neces- 

 sity exists for the purposes of the pre- 

 sent inquiry, nor will any such doctrine 

 be found in the following pages. The 

 only notion of a cause which the 

 theory of induction requires is such 

 a notion as can be gained from experi- 

 ence. The Law of Causation, the 

 recognition of which is the main pillar 

 of inductive science, is but the familiar 

 truth that invariability of succession 

 is found by observation to obtain 

 between every fact in nature and 

 some other fact which has preceded 

 it, independently of all considerations 

 respecting the ultimate mode of pro- 

 duction 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 succeed- 

 ing instant, there is an invariable order 

 of succession ; and, as we said in 

 speaking of the general uniformity of 

 the course of nature, this web is com- 

 posed of separate fibres ; this collective 

 order is made up of particular se- 

 quences, obtaining invariably among 

 the separate parts. To certain facts, 

 certain facts always do, and, as we 

 believe, will continue to, succeed. The 

 invariable antecedent is termed the 

 cause ; the invariable consequent, the 

 effect. And the universality of the 

 law of causation consists in this, that 

 every consequent is connected in this 

 manner with some particular ante- 

 cedent or set of antecedents. Let 

 the fact be what it may, if it has begun 



