A System of Logic: Ratiocinative and Inductive, 7th Edition, Vol. IIMill, John Stuart
Philosophy
A System of Logic: Ratiocinative and Inductive, 7th Edition, Vol. II
Mill, John Stuart
Knowledge, Theory of; Logic; Science -- Methodology
§ 2. From a limited number of ultimate laws of causation, there are
necessarily generated a vast number of derivative uniformities, both of
succession and of coexistence. Some are laws of succession or of
coexistence between different effects of the same cause: of these we had
examples in the last chapter. Some are laws of succession between
effects and their remote causes; resolvable into the laws which connect
each with the intermediate link. Thirdly, when causes act together and
compound their effects, the laws of those causes generate the
fundamental law of the effect, namely, that it depends on the
coexistence of those causes. And, finally, the order of succession or of
coexistence which obtains among effects, necessarily depends on their
causes. If they are effects of the same cause, it depends on the laws of
that cause; if on different causes, it depends on the laws of those
causes severally, and on the circumstances which determine their
coexistence. If we inquire further when and how the causes will
coexist, that, again, depends on _their_ causes: and we may thus trace
back the phenomena higher and higher, until the different series of
effects meet in a point, and the whole is shown to have depended
ultimately on some common cause; or until, instead of converging to one
point, they terminate in different points, and the order of the effects
is proved to have arisen from the collocation of some of the primeval
causes, or natural agents. For example, the order of succession and of
coexistence among the heavenly motions, which is expressed by Kepler's
laws, is derived from the coexistence of two primeval causes, the sun,
and the original impulse or projectile force belonging to each
planet.[13] Kepler's laws are resolved into the laws of these causes and
the fact of their coexistence.
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