In the German equivalent *ursache*, we have plainly the original meaning of *thing before*, the *sache* denoting “interesting or important object,” the English *sake*, and *ur* being the equivalent of the English *ere*, *before*. We abandon, then, both etymology and philosophy, when we attribute to the *laws of causation* any meaning beyond that of the *conditions* under which an event may be expected to happen, according to our observation of the previous course of nature. I have no objection to use the words cause and causation, provided they are never allowed to lead us to imagine that our knowledge of nature can attain to certainty. I repeat that if a cause is an invariable and necessary condition of an event, we can never know certainly whether the cause exists or not. To us, then, a cause is not to be distinguished from the group of positive or negative conditions which, with more or less probability, precede an event. In this sense, there is no particular difference between knowledge of causes and our general knowledge of the succession of combinations, in which the phenomena of nature are presented to us, or found to occur in experimental inquiry. *Distinction of Inductive and Deductive Results.* We must carefully avoid confusing together inductive investigations which terminate in the establishment of general laws, and those which seem to lead directly to the knowledge of future particular events. That process only can be called induction which gives general laws, and it is by the subsequent employment of deduction that we anticipate particular events. If the observation of a number of cases shows that alloys of metals fuse at lower temperatures than their constituent metals, I may with more or less probability draw a general inference to that effect, and may thence deductively ascertain the probability that the next alloy examined will fuse at a lower temperature than its constituents. It has been asserted, indeed, by Mill,[133] and partially admitted by Mr. Fowler,[134] that we can argue directly from case to case, so that what is true of some alloys will be true of the next. Professor Bain has adopted the same view of reasoning. He thinks that Mill has extricated us from the dead lock of the syllogism and effected a total revolution in logic. He holds that reasoning from particulars to particulars is not only the usual, the most obvious and the most ready method, but that it is the type of reasoning which best discloses the real process.[135] Doubtless, this is the usual result of our reasoning, regard being had to degrees of probability; but these logicians fail entirely to give any explanation of the process by which we get from case to case. [133] *System of Logic*, bk. II. chap, iii. [134] *Inductive Logic*, pp. 13, 14. [135] Bain, *Deductive Logic*, pp. 208, 209.