is a particular, and not a universal; however close a semblance it may prima facie bear to the latter. In effect, a Judgment may include a reservation which seems to restrict its universality, and yet be a true universal; provided that the restriction is not inherent in the order to which the Judgment applies, but is derived from another and, perhaps, nobler order. It is no derogation from the universality of the law by which bodies, under the impulsion of a single force, move in a straight line; if by counteraction of forces such as, for instance, the centripetal and the so-called centrifugal forces, the motion becomes orbital. After a like manner, any agent, acting according to a physical law or under the obedience of a natural impulsion, in the natural order always under similar circumstances and conditions produces similar effects; unless its action should be suspended or changed by some agent of a higher order. So far, then, as regards the natural order, the Judgment is, strictly speaking, a universal; the limitation, suggested by the adverb, arises from the possible action of a higher cause. And what does this mean, if not, that physical evidence and certitude are inferior to metaphysical evidence and certitude,-in a word, that the former are conditioned? But, if conditioned, the condition must find a place in the Judgment. It must not, however, be imagined that the Judgment itself is only physically evident; since the present contention is, that it is an analytical Principle. The matter of the Judgment, or the action (say rather, the effect of the action) of the bodily agent, is physically evident and certain; yet the form, or the conditioned truth of the position of the physically certain effect by the physical agent under the alleged conditions, is metaphysically evident and certain. So, it is metaphysically evident that physical evidence is conditioned.

III. Again, it may be urged, that the aforesaid Judgment cannot be analytical; because it is contingent, not necessary. The proof of the Antecedent is, that both its subject and its predicate exhibit real finite existences; but real finite existences are contingent, and, therefore, the connection between them must likewise be contingent. The truth of the Minor in the principal argument is thus established. An agent acting according to a physical law or in obedience to a natural impulsion is a real, actual existbut such is the subject of the Judgment. Again: The act of producing similar effects under similar circumstances and

ence ;

conditions is a real, actual, existence; but such is the predicate of the Judgment.

ANSWER. It is not true that the Judgment is contingent or-to speak more accurately,-deals with contingent matter. Now, as to the proof: Both subject and predicate exhibit real, finite existence ideally and in the abstract-granted; in the actual exercise of existence, -no. Wherefore, if the subject and predicate are contingent, the connection between the two must be likewise contingent,-here, again, there is need of a distinction. If the subject and predicate exhibit the actual exercise of existence,-let it pass; if the subject and predicate exhibit existence ideally and in the abstract, the nexus must necessarily be likewise contingent,-no. The above distinction needs some explanation. If, in the Judgment now under consideration, the agent acting according to physical law, &c., were represented to the mind as actually hic et nunc producing a real, individual, effect; the logical connection between the subject and predicate would be contingent, not necessary. The reason is, that no act is absolutely necessary in all differences of time, save the Divine Act Which is God Himself. But, if the agent according to physical law, &c., and the effect such agent is supposed to produce should be assumed, (as is the case in the aforesaid Judgment), ideally and in the abstract, the logical nexus will be necessary, not contingent; because the connection is evolved from the nature of the subject, not from its act. Even in the hypothesis that no agent according to physical law were in existence, it would still remain for ever true that, if such an agent should exist, it would, under similar circumstances and conditions, produce similar effects, unless its causality were at any time impeded by the action of some superior cause.

IV. Another objection has been made to the truth of the present Thesis. The Judgment which pronounces that from similar causes similar effects will be produced is a merely gratuitous assertion; since it rests neither on the immediate relation of ideas contained in the subject and predicate nor on any testimony of experience. It cannot rest on the immediate relation between subject and predicate; because there is nothing repugnant in the notion that the future may be unlike the past. It cannot rest on any testimony of experience; because it is a contradiction in terms to associate experience with the future. Wherefore, the Judgment in question is not an analytical Principle; but is rather a common prejudice,

traceable to the influence of custom or of habituation to a certain conjunction of facts in the past.

ANSWER. The Antecedent, viz. that the Judgment in question is a gratuitous assertion, is denied. As to the proof, it may be safely granted that the said Judgment does not rest on the testimony of experience. But the analysis already instituted justifies the denial, that it does not rest on the immediate relation of the ideas contained in subject and predicate; or, (to avoid the possibility of equivocation), it is denied that the notion of the predicate is not essentially included in the notion of the subject, duly and philosophcally conceived. It is further denied that the said Judgment is a common prejudice; since this would imply that it is not based on a sufficient motive. Neither can the common consent to its truth be attributed by any reasonable man to either mere custom or mere habituation to a certain conjunction of facts in the past; though that conjunction, (which most men take to be causal), of facts in the past offers a subject, or experimental Judgment, to which this analytical Principle can be safely applied. The author of this objection has prepared the way for a rejection of the Principle that forms the subject of this Thesis, by raising kindred doubts touching the validity of the Principle of causality, by means of which the former is applied to experimental Judgments. These doubts are in great measure suggested, first of all, by the difficulty which the intellect of man not unfrequently experiences in determining the nature of the causal influx or of the act of the efficient cause in its effect. They are partly chargeable to an erroneous ideology. For it is supposed that only sensile perceptions are intuitive; while all intellectual ideas are reflex, having for their object either immediately or mediately a sensile perception. Now, sensile perceptions are representative of material phenomena, or the accidents of things, exclusively. Consequently, as nothing can give to another that which it has not itself, sensile perceptions can only object before the intellect the accidental phenomena which themselves represent. Whatever else, therefore, the mind cognizes, must be a pure coinage of its own. But such, it is hardly necessary to observe, is not the doctrine of the School touching the formation of ideas. The intellect never does, never could, accept the mere phantasm, or sensile representation, for its object; for there is too great a disparity of nature between the two. But the phantasm serves as an inciting of lens, so to say), through which the

cause and medium, (a sort

mind immediately intues the nature in act. Neither are we justified in concluding, because it cannot at times determine the precise nature of the causal influx, that it cannot cognize the fact of efficient causality. It should be further observed, that it does not intue the fact in the sensile representation, (or, rather, presentation); but in that nature in act, (which is its proper object), as related to the external phenomena. Let thus much suffice on a subject which is outside the proper sphere of metaphysics. In concluding the answer to this objection, an ambiguity in the proof for the second member of the disjunctive must be resolved. It is urged : There is nothing repugnant in the notion that the future may be unlike the past. This proposition must be distinguished. There is nothing repugnant in the idea that some facts or other in the future should be unlike sundry other facts in the past,-let it pass: There is nothing repugnant in the idea that an entity, energizing in obedience to a physical law or to a natural impulsion, should produce effects in the future dissimilar from those which it has produced in the past, there is again need of a distinction: There is nothing repugnant in such a notion to a mind that denies, or is sceptical about, physical order, physical law, natural tendencies, and attributes everything to chance,-let it pass, nay, be it granted; there is nothing repugnant in the notion to a man of sane mind,—once more, a subdistinction: That such an entity of itself should produce dissimilar effects in the future naturally,-the proposition must be negatived; by the action of a superior cause and preternaturally, —a final subdistinction is necessary: Repeatedly, (except under circumstances already referred to), -no; occasionally,—yes.

V. Once more: It has been objected that the Judgment in question is not an analytical Principle, since it is not metaphysically evident. The common consent, therefore, of mankind in its favour must be traced to an instinct of our nature, which with an irresistible force impels men so to judge.

ANSWER. As to the primary assertion, the answer has been already given. The theory, by which it is attempted to account for the universal acceptance of the truth of this Principle, must be sternly rejected. For it supposes the existence of intellectual certainty without evidence, and the possibility of a judicial act of the mind in the absence of any formal object. The further discussion of this last paradoxical assumption is reserved for the next Chapter.

VI. Finally, an objection may be brought against the second member of the Principle in question. For, whatever may be thought concerning the question of an entity that is energizing according to some physical law, it seems impossible to admit that any cause, however excellent, could interfere with an entity that is acting under a natural impulsion. Indeed, such an admission would be in open opposition to the doctrine, repeatedly enforced in these pages, that a nature or essence and, therefore, the essential tendencies of a nature are unalterable even by the Divine Will. But, if such tendency in certain exceptional cases could be arrested, it would ipso facto be capable of alteration. Therefore, in its case the adverb, ordinarily, i.e. for the most part, should be omitted.

ANSWER. The above would be a real difficulty, if it were maintained that the natural tendency itself could be arrested or changed. So much, however, has been neither asserted nor intended. On the other hand, it is possible that a superior cause may exceptionally arrest the act or effect of such tendency; for both these are accidental. But, in such cases of preternatural disturbance, the natural tendency remains as before.

PROPOSITION CXXVI.

By virtue of the Principle of causality, as supplying a sufficient motive for the application of the analytical Judgment, announced in the preceding Thesis, to specified physical phenomena; certain empirical Judgments assume a moral universality which makes them physically certain, and are thereby elevated to the rank of experimental axioms.

I. THE FIRST MEMBER of the present Proposition,-which declares that, by virtue of the Principle of causality, the analytical Principle already announced can be applied to specified physical phenomena, (i.e. to those wherein a constant order has been detected by observation or experiment),—is thus proved. Presupposing a due experience of these physical phenomena, or facts of nature, it is often possible to determine, by virtue of the Principle of causality, that certain agents act according to a physical law or in obedience to a natural impulsion. But, this once known, it is possible to apply the aforesaid Principle to such facts; and so, to form a Judgment touching the constancy with which those causes will produce similar effects