An introductory text-book of logic - Mellone, Sydney - Rare Books at ...

252 THE GENERAL NATURE OF INDUCTION.
presupposition of scientific method. We must grant
beforehand that every event has a cause. This principle
or postulate is called the Law of Universal Causation.
Dr Fowler states it thus :
" No change can take place
without being preceded or accompanied by other circum
stances, which if we were fully acquainted with them
would fully account for the change." This principle
may be shown to be implied in all thinking. Even
children, and the lower races of men, though they do not
think of it, think according to it. If the savage were
content to leave any event unexplained, he would not
imagine that all events are controlled by spirits, malev
olent or benevolent. It is in fact impossible to think
of an event without referring it to a cause, known or
unknown. Even if we had a state of affairs where the
past gave no assurance as to the future, our way of con
ceiving it would not be contrary to the principle
of the
Universality of Causation. We should think that some
capricious power had added itself to the conditions, and
was turning them now this way and now that.
the side of the Law of Universal Causation Dr
By
Fowler places, as another fundamental presupposition of
induction, the law that the same cause must have the
same effect ; when the same conditions are fulfilled the
same result will follow. This is sometimes referred to
as the principle of the Uniformity of Nature ; it is better
described as the
as the
"
"
Uniformity
Unity of Nature," or, less abstractly,
of Causation." The student will
see on reflection that this principle is included in the
principle of Universal Causation ; for by Cause is just
meant in science a condition on which the effect always
follows ( 7).
If it sometimes followed and sometimes
did not, there would be no object in trying to discover
it ; you would simply not have a cause at all.