00-teXtSTENCES mDEPBNDBNT Of CAtTSATlON. 377 



CHAPTEB XXII. 



OF DNirORMITIES OF CO-EXISTENCE 

 NOT DEPENDENT ON CAUSATION. 



§ I, The order of the occurrence of 

 phenomena in time is either succes- 

 sive or simultaneous ; the uniformities, 



into M. Taine's meaning ; but I confess I 

 do not see how any mere abstract concep- 

 tion, elicited by our minds from our ex- 

 perience, can be evidence of an objective 

 fact in universal nature, beyond what the 

 experience itself bears witness of ; or how, 

 in the process of interpreting in general 

 language the testimony of experience, the 

 limitations of the testimony itself can be 

 cast off. 



• Dr. Ward, in an able article in the Dublin 

 Revieio for October 1871, contends that the 

 xmifomiity of nature cannot be proved 

 from experience, but from "transcen- 

 dental considerations " only, and that, con- 

 sequently, all physical science would be 

 deprived of its basis if such transcendental 

 proof were impossible. 



When physical science is said to depend 

 on the assumption that the course of nature 

 is invariable, all that is meant is that the 

 conclusions of physical science are not 

 known as absolute ti-uths ; the truth of 

 them is conditional on the uniformity of 

 the course of nature ; and all that the most 

 conclusive observations and experiments 

 can prove, is that the result arrived at will 

 be true if, and as long as, the present laws 

 «)f natuie arc valid. But this is all the 

 assurance we require for the guidance of 

 our conduct. Dr. Ward himself does not 

 think that his transcendental proofs make 

 it practically greater ; for he believes, as a 

 Catholic, that the course of nature not only 

 has been, but frequently, and even daily is, 

 suspended by supernatural intervention. 



But though this conditional conclusive- 

 ness of the evidence of experience, which 

 is sufficient for the purposes of life, is all 

 that I was necessarily concerned to prove, 

 I have given reasons for thinking that the 

 uniformity, as itself a part of experience, 

 is sufficiently proved to justify undoubting 

 reliance on it. This Dr. Ward contests, 

 for the following reasons : — 



First, (p. 315) supposing it true that there 

 has hitherto been no well-authenticated 

 case of a breach in the uniformity of 

 nature, "the number of natural agents 

 constantly at work is incalculably large ; 

 and the observed eases of uniformity in 

 their action must be immeasurably fewer 

 than one-thousandth of the whole. Scien- 

 tific men, we assume for the moment, have 

 discovered that in a certain proportion of 

 instances — immeasurably fewer than one- 

 thousandth of the whole — a certain fact 

 haa picvaikd, the fact of uniformity ; and 



therefore, which obtain in their occur- 

 rence, are either uniformities of succes- 

 sion or of co-existence. Uniformities 

 of succession are all comprehended 

 under the law of causation and its 

 consequences. Every phenomenon 

 has a cause, which it invariably fol- 

 lows ; and from this are derived other 



they have not found a single instance in 

 which that fact does yiot prevail. Are they 

 justified, we ask, in infeiring from these 

 premises that the fact is universal ? Surely 

 the question answers itself. Let us mako 

 a very grotesque supposition, in which, 

 however, the conclusion would really bo 

 tiled according to the arguments adduced. 

 In some desert of Africa there is an enor- 

 mous connected edifice, surrounding somo 

 vast space, in which dwell certain reason- 

 able beings, who are unable to leave tho 

 enclosure. In this edifice are more than 

 a thousand chambers, which some years 

 asjo were entirely locked up, and the keys 

 no one knew where. By constant dili- 

 gence twenty-five keys have been found out 

 of the whole number, and the correspond- 

 ing chambers, situated promiscuously 

 throughout the edifice, have been opened. 

 Each chamber, when examined, is found 

 to be in the precise shape of a dodecahe- 

 dron. Are the inhabitants justified on that 

 account in holding with certitude that tho 

 remaining 975 chambers are built on tho 

 same plan ? " 



Not with perfect certitude, but (if tho 

 chambers to which the keys have been 

 found are really " situated promiscu- 

 ously") with so high a degree of proba- 

 bility that they wotild be justified iii 

 acting upon the presumption until an ex- 

 ception appeared. 



Dr. Ward's argument, however, does not 

 touch mine as it stands in the text. My 

 argviment is grounded on the fact that tho 

 uniformity of t h e course of nature as a wh olo 

 is constituted by the uniform sequences 

 of special efifects from special natural 

 agencies ; that the number of these natural 

 agencies in the part of the Universe known 

 to us is not incalculable, nor even extremely 

 gi-eat ; that we have now reason to think 

 that at least the far greater number of 

 them, if not separately, at least in some of 

 the combinations into which they enter, 

 have been made sufficiently amenable to 

 observation, to have enabled us actually to 

 ascertain some of their fixed laws ; and 

 that this amount of experience justifies 

 the same degree of as-urance that tho 

 course of natuie is uniform throughout, 

 which we previously had of the uniformity 

 of sequence among the phenomena best 

 known to us. This view of the subject, if 

 correct, destroys the force of Dr. Ward's 

 first argument. 



His second argument is, that many or 



