ion may be raised to equal certainty. Such a law
is not to be found in the class of laws of number or of space; for
though these are certain and universal, no laws except those of space
and number can be deduced from them by themselves (however important
_elements_ they may be in the ascertainment of uniformities of
succession). But causation is such a law; and of this, moreover, all
cases of succession whatever are examples.

This _Law of Causation_ implies no particular theory as to the ultimate
production of effects by _efficient_ causes, but simply implies the
existence of an invariable order of succession (on our assurance of
which the validity of the canons of inductive logic depends) found by
observation, or, when not yet observed, believed, to obtain between an
invariable antecedent, i.e. the _physical_ cause, and an invariable
consequent, the effect. This sequence is generally between a consequent
and the _sum_ of several antecedents. The cause is really the sum total
of the conditions, positive and negative; the negative being stated as
one condition, the same always, viz. the absence of counteracting causes
(since one cause generally counteracts another by the same law whereby
it produces its own effects, and, therefore, the particular mode in
which it counteracts another may be classed under the positive causes).
But it is usual, even with men of science, to reserve the name _cause_
for an antecedent _event_ which completes the assemblage of conditions,
and begins to exist immediately before the effect (e.g. in the case of
death from a fall, the slipping of the foot, and not the weight of the
body), and to style the permanent facts or _states_, which, though
existing immediately before, have also existed long previously, the
_conditions_. But indeed, popularly, any condition which the hearer is
least likely to be aware of, or which needs to be dwelt upon with
reference to the particular occasion, will be selected as the cause,
even a negative condition (e.g. the sentinel's absence from his post, as
the cause of a surprise), though from a mere negation no consequence can
really proceed. On the other hand, the object which is popularly
regarded as standing in the relation of _patient_, and as being the mere
theatre of the effect, is never styled _cause_, being included in the
phrase describing the effect, viz. as the object, of which the effect is
_a state_. But really these so-called _patients_ are themselves