NATURAL LAW AND MIRACLE. 



57 



psychological " roots " of the idea of causality. Before doing so may 

 1^ suggest that his evident firm conviction that the causal principle 

 must have a " root " is somewhat inconsistent with his theories : — 

 {a) The exact nature of the first root is not clear. The conten- 

 tion appears to be that our constant consciousness of the 

 mechanical operation of the association of our ideas gives 

 rise to our idea of causation. Is not this equivalent to the 

 assertion that our idea of causality is derived from our 

 perception of the mechanical working of that principle. 

 This may be true, but how does it help the Doctor's 

 argument 



(h) Surely the statement of the second "root" should be 

 reversed. Is not the idea of causation the root of the 

 instinct of inquiry 1 A child sees a railway engine go 

 " puff", pufF." He feels there must be some adequate reason 

 or cause for this. He yearns to know what that cause is — 

 hence his inquiries. The idea of causality is necessarily 

 presupposed by the query " Why " 

 (c) The third "root" implies that the repetition of a given 

 sequence causes me to become gradually convinced that the 

 two phenomena constituting the sequence are causally 

 related. If this be so, why do I not believe day to be the 

 cause of night, and 12 o'clock of 1 o'clock 1 As a matter 

 of fact, we do not experience this gro\Wng conviction. A 

 chemist performs a new experiment. Though he performs 

 it but once he is perfectly convinced that, on the conditions 

 being reproduced, he will always obtain the same result. 

 Dr. von Gerdtell next cites the belief of Homer and others in 

 the intervention of gods and demons in the course of nature, as an 

 evidence that they did not believe in the inviolability of the causal 

 principle. But this is beside the mark. The ancients believed, not 

 that these prodigies were uncaused, but that they were super- 

 naturally caused. Even Epicurus or Aristotle would have found it 

 difficult to believe that a field of wheat had sprung into being- 

 uncaused, i.e., without growth from seed sown, on the one hand, or 

 the powerful intervention of some supernatural being, on the 

 other. 



At the end of his first part Dr. von Gerdtell states that the 

 causal principle " is the essential antecedent to all human thought 



