142 INITIATIVE IN EVOLUTION 



and that to find a cause for events is not merely a pursuit of the 

 vulgar, but a duty of scientific persons. 



Mill appears to have given eighteen different accounts of 

 causation and to have contradicted himself over and over again in 

 his works dealing with this puzzle, devised mainly by Hume and 

 himself ; and his successors, such as Dr. Mc'Taggart, the Hon. 

 Bertrand Russell of " Dog Fight " fame, Mr. Welton and Prof. Karl 

 Pearson, have only got as far as to reduce the number of his defini- 

 tions and put his views into more modern, but equally misleading 

 terms. Without any disparagement of their other claims to respect 

 and admiration, one may venture to throw overboard this school 

 of philosophers when considering causation, and one may walk 

 and talk in a clearer atmosphere. 



The subjects here considered are cause, effect, result, reason, 

 evidence and proof, and all can be seen to enter into my small 

 thesis. They may then be defined, according to Dr. Mercier, as 

 follows : — 



1. A cause is an action, or cessation of action, connected 



with a sequent change or accompanying unchange, in the 

 thing acted on, or more shortly for my purpose a cause 

 is an action upon a thing. 



2. An effect is a change connected with a preceding action. 



3. In reference to causation a reason means the cause of an 

 unchange. 



4. A result is the changed state that is left when an effect 

 has been produced. 



5. Evidence is of three kinds : evidence of sense, evidence 

 of reason and evidence of hearsay. 



6. Proof is evidence inconsistent with an alternative to the 

 assertion. 



I turn now to the aid given to the case before the jury, and 

 must show how Dr. Mercier's definitions establish it. 



The cause of the changes described is the action of certain 

 new habits on a living growing structure of the mammalian body. 



The effect is the change connected with the preceding change 

 of habit. 



The result is the changed direction of hair, in other words, 

 new patterns, left when the new habits have been produced, and 

 have been long enough in operation. 



The reason for the unchanges observed in many instances is 

 the primitive force of the normal direction of growth of the hair. 



