LAW OF CAUSATION. 



217 



The cause, then, philosophically 

 gpeaking, is the sum total of the con- 

 ditions positive and negative taken 

 together ; the whole of the contin- 

 gencies of every description, which 

 being realised, the consequent in- 



it would be wrong to say that the event 

 took place because the sentinel was absent, 

 and yet right to say that it took place be- 

 cause he was bribed to be absent. Since 

 the only direct effect of the bribe was his 

 absence, the bribe could be called the re- 

 mote cause of the surprise, only on the 

 supposition that the absence was the proxi- 

 mate cause ; nor does it seem to me that 

 any one (who had not a theory to support) 

 would use the one expression and reject 

 the other. 



The reviewer observes, that when a per- 

 son dies of poison, his possession of bodily 

 organs is a necessary condition, but that 

 no one would ever speak of it as the cause. 

 I admit the fact ; but I believe the reason 

 to be, that the occasion could never arise 

 for so speaking of it ; for when in the 

 accuracy of common discourse we are led 

 to speak of some one condition of a pheno- 

 menon as its cause, the condition so spoken 

 of is always one which it is at 1 .ast possible 

 that the hearer may require to be informed 

 of. The possession of bodily organs is a 

 known condition, and to give that as the 

 answer, when asked the cause of a person's 

 death, would not supply the information 

 sought. Once conceive that a doubt could 

 exist as to his having bodily organs, or 

 tliat he were to be compared with some 

 being who had them not, and cases may 

 be imagined in which it might be said that 

 his possession of them was the cause of his 

 death. If Faust and Mephistopheles to- 

 gether took poison, it might be said that 

 Faust died because he was a human being, 

 and had a body, while Mephistopheles sur- 

 vived because he was a spirit. 



It is for the same reason that no one (as 

 the reviewer remarks) " calls the cause of 

 a leap, the muscles or sinews of the body, 

 thou^'h they are necessary conditions ; nor 

 the cause of a self-sacrifice, the knowledge 

 which was necessary for it ; nor the cause 

 of writing a book, tiiat a man has time for 

 it, which is a necessary condition." These 

 condition 8 (besides that they are antecedent 

 states, and not proxiinate antecedent events, 

 and are therefore never the conditions in 

 closest apparent proximity to the effect) 

 are all of them so obviously implied, that 

 it is hardly possible there should exist 

 that necessity for insisting on them, which 

 alone gives occasion for speaking of a single 

 condition as if it were the cause. Where- 

 evei- this necessity exists in regard to some 

 one condition, and does not exist in re- 

 gard to any other, I conceive that it is 

 consistent with usage, when scientific accu- 

 racy is not aimed at, to apply the name 



variably follows. The negative con- 

 ditions, however, of any phenomenon, 

 a special enumeration of which would 

 generally be very prolix, may be all 

 summed up under one head, namely, 

 the absence of preventing or counter- 

 cause to that one condition. If the only 

 condition which can be supix)sed to be un- 

 known is a negative condition, the nega- 

 tive condition may be spoken of as tho 

 cause. It might be said that a person died 

 for want of medical advice, though this 

 would not be likely to be said unless the 

 person was already understood to be ill, 

 and in order to indicate that this negative 

 circumstance was what made the illness 

 fatal, and not the weakness of his con- 

 stitution, or tlie original virulence of the 

 disease. It might be said that a person 

 was drowned because he could not swim ; 

 the positive condition, namely, that he fell 

 into the water, being already implied in 

 the word drowned. And here let me re- 

 mark, that his falling into the water is in 

 this case the only positive condition : all 

 the conditions not expressly or virtually 

 included in this (as that he could not 

 swim, that nobody helped him, and so 

 forth) are negative. Yet, if it were simply 

 said that the cause of a man's death was 

 falling into the water, there would be quite 

 as great a sense of impropriety in the ex- 

 pression, as there would be if it were said 

 that the cause was his inability to swim : 

 because, though the one condition is posi- 

 tive and the other negative, it would be 

 felt that neither of them was sufficient, 

 without the other, to produce death. 



With regard to the assertion that nothing 

 is termed the cause except the element 

 which exerts active force, I- waive the 

 question as to the meaning of active force, 

 and accepting the phrase in its popular 

 sense, I revert to a former example, and I 

 ask, would it be more agreeable to custom 

 to say that a man fell because his foot 

 slipped in climbing a ladder, or that he 

 fell because of his weight ? for his weight, 

 and not the motion of his foot, was the 

 active force which determined his fall. If 

 a person walking out on a frosty day 

 stumbled and fell, it might be said that he 

 stumbled because the ground was slippery, 

 or because he was not sufficiently careful ; 

 but few people, I suppose, would say that he 

 stumbled because he walked. Yet the only 

 active force concerned was that which he 

 exerted in walking : the others were mere 

 negative conditions ; but they happened to 

 be the only ones which there could be any 

 necessity to state ; for he walked, most 

 likely, in exactly his usual manner, and 

 the negative conditions made all the differ- 

 ence. Again, if a person were asked why 

 the army of Xerxes defeated that of Leoni- 

 das, he would probably say, because they 

 were a thousand times the number : but I 



