(e) There are also a few cases in which properties co-exist in an unaccountable way, without being co-extensive with any one species, genus, or order:  as most metals are whitish, and scarlet flowers are wanting in fragrance. (On this Sec. 7, see Venn’s Empirical Logic, c. 4.)

Sec. 8.  Inasmuch as Axioms of Uniformity are ultimate truths, they cannot be deduced; and inasmuch as they are universal, no proof by experience can ever be adequate.  The grounds of our belief in them seem to be these: 

(1) Every inference takes for granted an order of Nature corresponding with it; and every attempt to explain the origin of anything assumes that it is the transformation of something else:  so that uniformity of order and conservation of matter and energy are necessary presuppositions of reasoning.

(2) On the rise of philosophic reflection, these tacit presuppositions are first taken as dogmas, and later as postulates of scientific generalisation, and of the architectonic unification of science.  Here they are indispensable.

(3) The presuppositions or postulates are, in some measure, verifiable in practical life and in scientific demonstration, and the better verifiable as our methods become more exact.

(4) There is a cause of this belief that cannot be said to contain any evidence for it, namely, the desire to find in Nature a foundation for confidence in our own power to foresee and to control events.

CHAPTER XIV

CAUSATION

Sec. 1.  For the theory of Induction, the specially important aspect of the Uniformity of Nature is Causation.

For (1) the Principles of Contradiction and Excluded Middle are implied in all logical operations, and need no further explication.

(2) That one thing is a mark of another or constantly related to it, must be established by Induction; and the surest of all marks is a Cause.  So that the application of the axiom of the Syllogism in particular cases requires, when most valid, a previous appeal to Causation.

(3) The uniformity of Space and of Time is involved in Causation, so far as we conceive Causation as essentially matter in motion—­for motion is only known as a traversing of space in time; and so far as forces vary in any way according to the distance between bodies; so that if space and time were not uniform, causation would be irregular.  Not that time and space are agents, but they are conditions of every agent’s operation.

(4) The persistence of Matter and Energy, being nothing else than Causation in the general movement of the world, is applied under the name of that principle in explaining any particular limited phenomenon, such as a soap-bubble, or a thunderstorm, or the tide.

(5) As to co-existences, the Geometrical do not belong to Logic:  those involved in the existence of plants, animals, and inorganic bodies, must, as far as possible, be traced to causes; and so, of course, must the relative positions of objects in space at any time:  and what Co-existences remain do not admit of methodical inductive treatment; they will be briefly discussed in chap. xix.