6 
let us remember that the assertion 
that every effect must have a cause is, though 
true, only a verbal truth. To dispute it would 
be to enter upon mere questions of words and 
definitions. It is an analysis of the conception of 
effect, in which that of cause is implied. It is but 
an analytical judgment. But the assertion, that 
every event must have a cause, is a synthetic 
judgment a priori. It is a synthesis, or putting 
together of the independent conceptions event 
and cause, for no analysis of the conception event 
seems to disclose the conception cause. It is a 
priori, for it is not derived from experience, 
which can only tell us what is or has been, not 
what will, still less what must be. Comparing 
the metaphysical proposition, that every event 
must have a cause, with the physical one, that 
every event has a oause, we notice that at first 
sight a single exception would seem to over- 
throw the former, while it would leave the 
latter true, save in the excepted case. It might 
be answered that the metaphysical is more ex- 
tensive than the physical proposition ; that 
every thing or state, as well as every event 
must have a cause ; that there is no 
exception j and that, even if the case 
of the free and undisturbed motion of a mate- 
rial particle, or any other case of persistency, be 
an exception to the physical, it isnoneto the meta- 
physical, dictum ; that there is a hyper-physical 
Gause of the persistency of the motion, as there 
is of the existence of matter itself. The reply 
might be, that we are now leaving the world of 
experience behind, and soaring into transcen- 
dental regions. But, waiving this, there seem 
to me to be other objections, not without weight, 
to the metaphysical dictum. The dictum is a 
synthetic judgment a priori, standing in isola- 
tion. Even if we reinforce it with two 
synthetic judgments, viz., that a cause is imme- 
diately and invariably followed by its effects, 
and that an effect may be the consequence of 
any or either of two or more sufficient causes, 
we seem to be as far as ever from a science of 
pure cause. In other cases, in which we can 
obtain one synthetic judgment a priori, we can 
obtain an illimitable multitude of such judg- 
ments and construct sciences ; as witness logic, 
arithmetic, geometry, algebra, kinematics, the 
calculus and the whole of pure mathematics. 
The subject matter of the metaphysical dictum 
is indeterminate, and involves concep- 
tions having no common characteristics. 
Other synthetic judgments a priori 
are based upon determinate subject- 
matter, of which every modification has 
a common characteristic; as logic upon laws of 
thought, arithmetic upon number, geometry 
upon space, and so on. The isolation and in- 
determinateness of the metaphysical dictum 
seem to be anomalous. The physical dictum, 
that every event has a cause, is isolated and in- 
determinate, but there is no anomaly. Being a 
synthetic judgment a posteriori, a judgment of 
experience, it rests, partly at all events, on the 
experience of which it is a generalisation. 
What we expect I om it is, not a multitude of 
similar judgments, or a science of abstract 
cause, but practical applications and illustra- 
tions in actual or possible experience. We do 
not expect to find it determinate, because ex- 
perience itself is indeterminate. We expect 
more from the metaphysical dictum because it 
does not, and cannot, rest upon experience. 
QQQO&QQB& 
Printed at the COURIER General Machine Printing Office, George -street, Brisbane. 
