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

THE GENERAL NATURE OF INDUCTION. 257
of microbes into a living body ; (fr) the effect, the
appearance
of a certain disease some time afterwards.
But this is going too far : even
popular thought never
regards the effect as separated from the cause ;
it regards
them only as distinct in time. The apparent separation
in the above case arises from the fact that we have not
considered the immediate effect, but have waited until it
has reached an advanced stage of development and have
called this the effect. Cause and effect are divided
simply by
a mathematical line a line destitute of
breadth which is thrown by our thought across the
current of events ; on one side we have the cause, on
the other the effect. There is no pause in reality ; the
whole process is continuous ;
the immediate cause comes
into action only at the very moment when the effect
begins to be produced. The point to be borne in mind
is the continuity of cause and effect. But the relation
of antecedent and consequent, of two distinct events,
one following the other, is not the essential aspect of the
causal relation. It is, of course, true that the entrance
of microbes into a human body is "followed" by a
certain disease; but this is no essential aspect of the
case. The essential matter is that as soon as the
microbes effect a lodgment in the human body they
begin to secrete injurious substances. In Chemistry,
again, the union of Oxygen and Hydrogen in the pro
portion by weight of eight to one is not an event distinct
from the formation of water ; the whole process is
continuous.
Hence Mill s first statement (a), that the cause is the
"invariable antecedent," is corrected in his third (*),
that the cause is
"
unconditional." To say that causa
tion is unconditional, means that the effect will be pro
duced whatever we suppose the circumstances to be. It
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