20 
the “occasional causes” of effects; but to discover the efficient 
cause. 
Hence, in every demonstrative induction of any general 
law, our task is simply to distinguish the seeming antecedents 
in observed sequences, from the efficient causal antecedent. - 
As soon as this latter is found, the law of nature is found ; 
for, we repeat, a natural law is no more than the expression of 
an efficient cause. 
Hence, the reasoning process in every valid induction is a 
syllogism,—as Whately asserted,—but not an invalid one, 
reasoning from the some to the all:—a syllogism, in which 
the major premise is always the necessary and universal 
judgment of cause, and the minor is some truth of obser- 
vation. And the argument yields general truths, because 
the premises always contain a universal truth ; demonstrated 
conclusions, because the premises contain necessary truth. . 
And thus the inductive logic is reconciled with the demon- 
stration that all our valid processes of argument must be 
reducible to syllogism. ‘The problem, then, is to distinguish 
between those observed sequences which certainly will hold 
in the future, and those which will not. And between the 
antecedent and consequent of the former sort, there must be 
known to be a necessary tie; for it is self-evident that only a 
necessary tie can ensure the certain recurrence of the second 
after the first. But it is equally evident, both to the human 
reason and experience, that nature has no necessary tie between 
her events, except that of efficient cause. Hence it appears 
that the sole remaining problem of Induction is to distinguish 
the causal sequences we observe, from the accidental. When- 
ever we see what we term an effect, a change, a newly 
beginning action or state, this necessary law of the reason 
assures us that it had its cause. Had not that cause been 
efficient of that effect, it would not have been true cause. 
It must, then, have communicated power. That power will 
always be efficient of the same effect, when it acts under the 
same conditions. Hence, when we have truly discriminated 
the cause from the mere antecedent, the propter hoc from the 
post hoc, we have found therein a certain and invariable law 
of nature. We have read nature’s secret. We are now 
enabled to predict her future actions; and so far as we can 
procure the presence of the discovered cause and conditions, 
we can command nature, and produce the effects we desire. 
This, and this alone, is inductive demonstration. 
The reader is now brought to the proper point of view to 
understand why the induction from a mere enumeration of 
agreeing instances can never rise above probability ; and why 
