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

THE GENERAL NATURE OF INDUCTION. 259
volume) of Hydrogen and one of Oxygen,
the immediate
cause is the one fact of the action of the electric energy,
whatever it may be. On the other hand, in the modification
of a species of the animal kingdom in the course of ages, it
is more convenient to consider the possibility of several
different immediate causes e.g.) Natural Selection; the
direct action of the environment ; the inheritance of
characteristics acquired by the creatures own activities,
&c. Again, in the case of a person s death through
being shot in the heart, the immediate cause is the pierc
ing of the heart by the bullet, which we may regard as
a single fact. This stops the heart s action ; and the heart s
action is one of the processes necessary in order that the
complex process of physical
life should continue.
It is evident that in ordinary life we do not usually trouble
ourselves about immediate causes in this sense. We do not
go beyond the preceding circumstances out of which the
immediate cause arose e.g., the action of the person who
fired the bullet. Such antecedent circumstances, which are
striking and important from some practical point of view, are
"
"
the causes with which we concern ourselves. Sometimes,
what is practically the most important is scientifically the
to know
least : important it may be of great importance
what circumstances will produce an event without knowing
how it. they produce For instance, it may be of importance
to clear the premises of rats ; traps, strychnine, phosphorus,
"
and terriers are various "causes between which we must
choose : but we do not as a rule hold post-mortems on dead
rats. Popularly, we take as the cause an antecedent, selected
arbitrarily or for some practical purpose.
The Immediate Cause, for which Science seeks, may be a
complex group of conditions, each one of which may be con
sidered as a co-operating cause ; on the other hand, it may
be a single definite circumstance, and to regard it as such
does not necessarily imply an arbitrary selection of it from
among the surrounding conditions. But, whether it is taken
to be one definite fact or a definite group of facts, it is always
understood to be that circumstance in the presence of which
the event takes place, and in the absence of which it does
not take place.