LAW OF CAUSATION. 



227 



space, and all their properties, in 

 other words, the laws of their agency, 

 could predict the whole subsequent 

 history of the universe, at least unless 

 some new volition of a power capable 

 of controlling the universe should 

 supervene.* And if any particular 

 state of the entire universe could 

 ever recur a second time, all subse- 

 quent states would return too, and 

 history would, like a circulating deci- 

 mal of many figures, periodically re- 

 peat itself : — 



Jam redit et virgo, redeunt Satumia 



regna, . . . 

 Alter erit turn Tiphys, et altera qiise 



vehat Argo 

 Delectus heroas ; erunt quoque altera 



bella, 

 Atque iieriim ad Trojam magnus mitte- 



tur Achillea. 



And though things do not really re- 

 volve in this eternal round, the whole 



* To the universality which mankind are 

 agreed in ascribing to the Law of Causa- 

 tion there is one claim of exception, one 

 disputed case, that of the Human Will ; 

 the determinations of which, a large class 

 of metaphysicians are not willing to regard 

 as following the causes called motives, ac- 

 cording to as strict laws as those which 

 they suppose to exist in the world of mere 

 matter. This controverted point will un- 

 dergo a special examination when we come 

 to treat particularly of the Logic of the 

 Moral Sciences (Book vi. ch. 2). In the 

 meantime I may remark, that these me- 

 taphysicians, who, it must be obsefved, 

 ground the main part of their objection on 

 the supposed repugnance of the docti-ine 

 in question to our consciousness, seem to 

 me to mistake the fact which conscious- 

 ness testifies against. What is really in 

 contradiction to consciousness they would, 

 I think, on strict self-examination, find to 

 be the application to human actions and 

 volitions of the ideas involved in the com- 

 mon use of the term Necessity ; which I 

 agree with them in objecting to. But if 

 they would consider that by saying that a 

 person's actions necessarily follow from his 

 character, all that is really meant (for no 

 more is meant in any case whatever of 

 causation) is that he invariably does act in 

 conformity to his character, and that any 

 one who thoroughly knew his character 

 could certainly predict how he would act 

 in any supposable case ; they probably 

 would not find this doctrine either con- 

 trary to their experience or revolting to 

 their feeUnga. And no more than this is 

 contended for by any one but an Asiatic 

 fatalist: ' ^ 



series of events in the history of the 

 universe, past and future, is not the 

 less capable, in its own nature, of 

 being constructed d pinori by any one 

 whom we can suppose acquainted 

 with the original distribution of all 

 natural agents, and with the whole of 

 their properties, that is, the law of 

 succession existing between them and 

 their eflFects : saving the far more 

 than human powers of combination 

 and calculation which would be re- 

 quired, even in one possessing the 

 data, for the actual perfornjance of 

 the task. 



§ 9. Since everything which occurs 

 is detennined by laws of causation 

 and collocations of the original causes, 

 it follows that the co-existences which 

 are observable among effects cannot 

 be themselves the subject of any 

 similar set of laws, distinct from laws 

 of causation. Uniformities there are, 

 as well of co-existence as of succession, 

 among effects ; but these must in all 

 cases be a mere result either of the 

 identity or of the co-existence of their 

 causes : if the causes did not co-exist, 

 neither could the effects. And these 

 causes being also effects of prior 

 causes, and these of others, until we 

 reach the primeval causes, it follows 

 that (except in the case of effects 

 which can be traced immediately 01 

 remotely to one and the same cause) 

 the co-existences of phenomena can in 

 no case be universal, unless the co- 

 existences of the primeval causes to 

 which the effects are ultimately trace- 

 able, can be reduced to an universal 

 law : but we have seen that they 

 cannot. There are, accordingly, no 

 original and independent, in other 

 words no unconditional, uniformities 

 of co-existence — between effects of 

 different causes ; if they co-exist, it is 

 only because the causes have casually 

 co-existed. The only independent and 

 unconditional co-existences which are 

 sufficiently invariable to have any 

 claim to the character of laws, are 

 between different and mutually inde- 

 pendent effects of the same cause ; in 



