Law of CAITSATION. 



215 



If we do not, when aiming at ac- 

 curacy, enumerate all the conditions, 

 it is only because some of them will 

 in most cases be understood without 

 being expressed, or because for the 

 purpose in view they may without de- 

 triment 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 circum- 

 stance 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 con- 

 ditions are fulfilled, makes up the 

 sum of the conditions, though no one 

 now regards it as the principal one. 

 When the decision of a legislative 

 assembly has been determined by the 

 casting vote of the chairman, we some- 

 times say that this one person was 

 the cause of all the effects which re- 

 sulted 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 to 

 insist on hi.s individual responsibility, 

 the part which any other person had 

 in the transaction is not material. 



In all these instances the fact which 

 was dignified with 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 phenomenon 

 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 any of them which may not, 

 according to the purpose of our im- 

 mediate discourse, obtain that nomi- 

 nal pre-eminence. This will be seen 

 by analysing the conditions of some 



one familiar phenomenon. Tor ex- 

 ample, a stone thrown into water falls 

 to the bottom. What are the condi- 

 tions of this event ? In the first place, 

 there must be a stone and water, and 

 the stone must be thrown into the 

 water ; but these suppositions forming 

 part of the enunciation of the pheno- 

 menon itself, to include them also 

 among the conditions would be a 

 vicious tautology ; and this class of 

 conditions, therefore, have never re- 

 ceived the name of cause from any 

 but the Aristotelians, by whom they 

 were called the material cause, cama 

 materialis. The next condition is, 

 there must be an earth ; and accord- 

 ingly it is often said that the fall of 

 a stone is caused by the earth, or by 

 a power or property of the earth, or 

 a force exerted by the earth ; all of 

 which are merely roundabout ways of 

 saying tliat it is caused by the earth ; 

 or, lastly, the earth's attraction, 

 which also is only a technical mode 

 of saying that the earth causes the 

 motion, with the additional particu- 

 larity that the motion is towards the 

 earth, which is not a character of the 

 cause, but of the effect. Let ixs now 

 pass to another condition. It is not 

 enough that the earth should exist ; 

 the body must be within that dis- 

 tance from it in which the earth's at- 

 traction preponderates over that of 

 any other body. Accordingly we may 

 say, and the expression would be con- 

 fessedly correct, that the cause of the 

 stone's falling is its being iciihin the 

 sphere of the earth's attraction. We 

 proceed to a further condition. The 

 stone is immersed in water : it i.s 

 therefore a condition of its reaching 

 the ground that its specific gravity- 

 exceed that of the surrounding fluid, 

 or, in other words, that it sui-pass in 

 weight an equal volume of water. 

 Accordingly any one would be ac- 

 knowledged to speak correctly who 

 said that the cause of the stone's 

 going to the bottom is its exceeding 

 in specific gravity the fluid in which 

 it is immersed. 

 Thus we see that each and every con- 



