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

258 THE GENERAL NATURE OF INDUCTION.
means that some kind of connection deeper than that of
time has been found ;
the cause in some way necessitates
the effect. Obviously this connection, where it can be
established, is of supreme importance,
and the time
sequence is in comparison of no importance.
In connection with Mill s second statement (fr) that
the cause is often a complex group of facts acting to
gether, we find a passage which is often quoted as his
final definition of Cause :
" The Cause is the sum total
of the conditions, positive and negative, taken together ;
the whole of the contingencies of every description,
which being realised, the consequent invariably follows.
The negative conditions . . . may all be summed up
under one head, namely, the absence of preventing or
counteracting causes." Strictly speaking, it is quite true
that we cannot stop at any limited combination of cir
cumstances, and say,
"
these, and nothing else, constitute
the
"
cause ; for all events are connected together,
when a stone is dropped, there is a sense in which it has
an effect through all time and all space. Thus, any
event may be regarded as the effect of all the causes in
the universe at the preceding moment. But all these
further and more remote conditions are usually taken for
granted. What we want to know is the immediate cause.
The scientific investigator seeks to isolate the event in
various ways, and examine or analyse it,
so as to dis
cover some definite circumstance with which the event
will occur, and without which it will not occur. This
is what we mean by the "immediate cause." Some
times it is more convenient to regard the immediate
cause as a single fact, sometimes as a group of facts
acting together.
For example, in the formation of water by the passage of
an electric spark through a vessel containing two parts (by