LAW OF CAUSATION. 



239 



thing else in the universe. It is true 

 there are cases in which, with acknow- 

 ledged propriety, we generalise from 

 a single instance to a multitude of in- 

 stances. But they must be instances 

 which resemble the one known in- 

 stance, and not such as have no cir- 

 cumstance in common with it except 

 that of being instances. I have, for 

 example, no direct evidence that any 

 creature is alive except myself ; yet I 

 attribute, with full assurance, life and 

 sensation to other human beings and 

 animals. But I do not conclude that 

 all other things are alive merely be- 

 cause I am. I ascribe to certain other 

 creatures a life like my own, because 

 they manifest it by tlie same sort of 

 indications by which mine is mani- 

 fested. I find that their phenomena 

 and mine conform to the same laws, 

 and it is for this reason that I believe 

 both to arise from a similar cause. 

 Accordingly I do not extend the con- 

 clusion beyond the grounds for it. 

 Earth, fire, mountains, trees, are re- 

 markable agencies, but their pheno- 

 mena do not conform to the same 

 laws as my actions do, and I there 

 fore do not believe earth or fire, moun- 

 tains or trees, to possess animal life. 

 But the supporters of the Volition 

 Theory ask us to infer that volition 

 causes everything, for no reason ex- 

 cept that it causes one particular 

 thing ; although that one pheno- 

 menon, far from being a type of all 

 natural phenomena, is eminently pecu- 

 liar, its laws bearing scarcely any 

 resemblance to those of any other 

 phenomenon, whether "of inorganic or 

 of organic nature. 



NOTE SUPPLEMENTARY TO THE 

 PRECEDING CHAPTER. 



The author of the Second Burnett Prize 

 Essay (Dr. Tulloch), who has employed a 

 considerable number of jKiges in contro- 

 verting the doctrines of the preceding 

 chapter, has somewhat surprised me by 

 denying a fact which I imagined too well 

 known to require proof — that there have 

 been philosophers who found in physical 

 ?xplauatiop,3 of phenoqiena tl^e same com- 



plete mental satisfaction which we are told 

 is only given by volitional explanation, and 

 others who denied the VoUtional Theory 

 on the same ground of inconceivability on 

 which it is defended. The assertion of the 

 Essayist is countersigned still more posi- 

 tively by an able reviewer of the Essay : * 

 " Two illustrations," says the reviewer, 

 "are advanced by Mr. Mill: the case of 

 Thales and Anaximenes, stated by him to 

 have maintained, the one Moisture, and 

 the other Air to be the origin of all things ; 

 and that of Descartes and Leibnitz, whom 

 he asserts to have found the action of 

 Mind upon Matter the grand inconceiv- 

 ability. In counter-statement as to the first 

 of these cases the author shows — what we 

 believe now hardly admits of doubt— that 

 the Greek philosophers distinctly recog- 

 nised as beyond and above their primal 

 material source, the vovi, or Divine In- 

 telligence, as the efficient and originating 

 Source of all ; and as to the second, by 

 proof that it was the mode, not the fact, of 

 that action on matter, which was repre- 

 sented as inconceivable." 



A greater quantity of historical error 

 has seldom been comprised in a single 

 sentence. With regard to Thales, the as- 

 sertion that he considered water as a mere 

 material in the bands of vav^ rests on a 

 pa.ssage of Cicero de Naturd Deorum: and 

 whoever will refer to any of the accurate 

 historians of philosophy, will find that 

 they treat this as a mere fancy of Cicero, 

 resting on no authority, opposed to all the 

 evidence ; and make sui-mises as to the 

 manner in which Cicero may have been 

 led into the error. (See Ritter, vol. i. p. 

 211, 2<1 ed. ; Brandis, vol. i. pp. 118-119, ist 

 ed. ; Preller, Historia Philosophia Graco- 

 Romana, p. 10. " Schiefe Ansicht, dur- 

 chaus zu verwerfen;" " augenscheinlich 

 folgemd statt zu berichten :" "quibus vera 

 sententia Thaletis plane detorquetur ; " are 

 the expressions of these writers.) As for 

 Anaximenes, he, even according to Cicero, 

 maintained, not that air was the material 

 out of which God made the world, but that 

 the air was a god : " Anaximenes aera deum 

 statuit ; " or, according to St. Augustine, 

 that it was the material out of which the 

 gods were made: "non tamen ab ipsis 

 [Diisjaerem factum, sed ipsos ex aereortos 

 credidit." Those who are not familiar with 

 the metaphysical terminology of antiquity 

 must not be misled by finding it stated 

 that Anaximenes attributed «//vx»? (trans- 

 lated soul or life) to his universal element, 

 the air. The Greek philosophers acknow- 

 ledged several kinds of i/n;xT», the nutritive, 

 the sensitive, and the intellective, f Even 

 the modems, with admitted correctness, 

 attribute life to plants. As far as we can 



* Westminster Review for October 1855. 



t See the whole doctrine in Aristotle de 

 Aiiimd. where the Optnnicir} ifrux^l is treated 

 as exactly equivalent to dpcirriKii Svvofii^. 



