The second then of our two fundamental propositions is, that the human mind has a power on occasion of certainly and immediately cognizing necessary ampliative truths as such. Phenomenists deny this proposition, and intuitionists maintain it. On no field can this battle be so decisively fought out, as on the field of mathematical axioms. There are several reasons why we think this; and Mr. Fitzjames Stephen has incidentally mentioned a strong one. "The words which relate to time, space, and number," he says, "are perfectly simple and adequate to what they describe; whereas the words which relate to common objects are nearly in every case complex, often to the highest degree." On the other hand, there is no part of his case which Mr. Mill more carefully elaborated, than that which concerns mathematical axioms. He accounted "the chief strength" of the intuitionist philosophy. "in morals, politics, and religion," to lie in "its appeal to the evidence of mathematics." To expel it thence, he adds, "is to drive it from its stronghold" ("Autobiography" p. 226); and he put forth accordingly his very utmost strength, for the accomplishment of this task. This was one special reason, which led us to encounter him hand to hand on this particular ground. Mr. Mill, feeling the vital importance of the issue, replied promptly to our arguments; and Mr. Fitzjames Stephen at a later period assailed us from a somewhat different point of view. On our side we thought it indispensable to reply; so that (as it happened) this particular constituent of our argument was swelled to a somewhat disproportionate size.

We here then assume ourselves to have been successful in showing, that the human mind has a power of cognizing immediately certain necessary ampliative truths as such. Now further no one will doubt, that if any such truths be cognizable, the validity of the syllogistic process is among their number. In proposing then to establish Theism argumentatively against phenomenists, what we propose is this. We are first to lay down certain ampliative truths, which we shall maintain to be immediately cognizable as necessary; drawing out such an appeal to the phenomena of man's intellectual nature, as shall show to be necessary: we doubt indeed whether they have looked the question in the face.

We may be allowed here to repeat a suggestion, which we have made in former articles. It seems to us, that what have been called "the fundamental laws of thought" are in fact but different exhibitions of the principle of identity. Thus the principle of contradiction; " anything which is not-B is-not B": the principle of excluded middle; "anything which is-not B is not-B." Neither of these propositions seems to go beyond "A is A."

us to be well warranted in so maintaining. Then, combining these truths with the facts of experience, we are to infer, as legitimately resulting from this assemblage of self-evident truths and experienced facts, that God certainly exists.

As we apprehend our position, the chief premisses needed for our argument are divisible into three classes: we need (1) certain truths in regard to morality; (2) certain truths in regard to causation; and (3) certain truths in regard to human free-will. Immediately after our article on necessary truths, -and before Mr. Mill had replied to that article-we entered (January 1872) on the first of these classes; and we proved (we trust) so much as this, viz. that certain moral verities are cognizable as necessary. There are further doctrines concerning morality, which it will be important to point out and elucidate; but before approaching these, it was desirable to consider free-will. The establishment of this truth against phenomenists required the establishment of two conclusions, one psychological and the other metaphysical. Phenomenists allege as a matter of experience (to use Mr. Mill's words) that "volitions follow determinate moral antecedents with the same uniformity and the same certainty, as physical effects follow their physical cause." This is the tenet of determinism." argued against it in April 1874; and supplemented our reasoning by some further remarks in our following number. We called our own adverse position by the name "indeterminism"; being the purely negative position, that volitions are not certainly determined by psychical antecedents. But free-will includes another doctrine, besides that of indeterminism; it includes the doctrine, that man is a self-determining cause of volition. And this proposition of course cannot be treated, until we have considered the question of causation. The principle of causation then is to occupy us in our present article.

We

Now at starting we must refer to one among the most signal proofs Mr. Mill has ever given, of his deficiency in philosophical discernment. The sense in which he uses the word "cause" is as simply different from that in which intuitionists use it, as is the word "box," when signifying a "shooting-box" or an "opera-box."† We do not say that

*All phenomenists are determinists; but the converse by no means holds, that all determinists are phenomenists.

We do not at all forget that every one, in writing on political or social subjects, uses the word "cause" in Mr. Mill's sense as e.g. when it is asked 66 what were the causes of the French Revolution ?" or "what are the causes of high wages?" But in philosophical discussions the case is quite otherwise.

he is entirely unaware of this fact; but we do say that he constantly fails to bear it in mind, on occasions when, for want of his doing so, his whole argument becomes simply unmeaning. This obstacle then against a mutual understanding must at once be removed; and our first undertaking shall be therefore to make as clear as we can, what Mr. Mill means by a "cause." With him, the idea of "cause is essentially based on that doctrine, which is called "the uniformity of nature"; and if nature—that is, visible and phenomenal nature physical or psychical-did not proceed uniformly, there would be no such thing as a "cause" at all. This is so undeniably his terminology, that the very same truth, which is sometimes called by him "the uniformity of nature," is elsewhere called by him "the law of universal causation." We must begin then by considering (1) what phenomenists mean, when they affirm that nature proceeds uniformly; and (2) how far we can ourselves concur with the proposition which they thus intend to express.

The phenomenist doctrine, on the uniformity of nature, may easily be expressed with sufficient precision for our present purpose. "Between the phenomena which exist at any instant," says Mr. Mill ("Logic," i. 377), "and the phenomena which exist at the succeeding instant, there is an invariable order of succession." His whole theory indeed of inductive logic (ii. 95) "depends on the assumption, that every event, or the beginning of every phenomenon, must have some antecedent, on the existence of which it is invariably and unconditionally consequent.' Similarly in a later work. "When we say that an ordinary physical fact always takes place according to some invariable law, we mean that it is connected by uniform sequence or co-existence with some definite set of physical antecedents; that whenever that set is exactly reproduced, the same phenomenon will take place, unless counteracted by the similar laws of some other physical antecedent; and that whenever it does take place, it would always be found that its special set of antecedents. for one of its sets, if it has more than one), has pre-existed." ("Essays on Religion," p. 224.) In other words, according to Mr. Mill, no phenomenon ever shows itself-be it physical or psychical-without a corresponding phenomenal antecedent; and the same phenomenal antecedent is invariably followed by the same phenomenal consequent. This intensely complex fact -the uniformity of nature-consists (he would add) of certain

*See, as a signal instance of this, the whole argument in his "Essays on Religion," from p. 142 to p. 145.

VOL. XXVII.-NO. LIII. [New Series.]

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is a

less complex groups of facts, called "the laws of nature." It law of nature" e. g. that if wheat seed be duly sown, and there be no adverse phenomena, wheat plant will in due time grow up and so in a million of other cases, physical or psychical. He would hold that this existent uniformity of nature may imaginably be brought to a close in two different ways. On one hand, the existent laws of nature might be changed for different laws as e. g. it might become a law of nature that, if wheat seed is sown, the barley plant shall duly follow. On the other hand the existent laws of nature might come to an end, without being succeeded by any others whatever; so that, in his own words, "a chaos should succeed, in the which there was no fixed succession of events, and the past gave no assurance of the future."

:

We need hardly say, that we substantially accept this statement but we do so, subject to two important exceptions. We regard it as generally true, but by no means as universally true, that visible and phenomenal nature proceeds uniformly. In the first place, we hold that this uniformity of nature is interrupted with indefinite frequency by miracles and other prodigies. In the second place we maintain, that one most important class of psychical phenomena-viz. human volitions -are largely external to the common law of uniformity.

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We are now able to understand what Mr. Mill means by cause." "We may define the 'cause' of a phenomenon,' he says, "to be the antecedent, or the concurrence of antecedents, on which it invariably and unconditionally follows." ("Logic," i. 392.) And he implies in this statement what he has already stated in p. 376. "When I speak of the cause of a phenomenon, I do not mean a cause which is not itself a phenomenon. The causes with which I concern myself are not efficient but physical causes." It is his deliberate profession, that by the term "cause" he always intends to express a certain phenomenon, more or less complex; a phenomenon which, according to the existent laws of nature, is invariably and unconditionally followed by another phenomenon more or less complex, which he calls the effect of such cause.

As it is of some practical importance that our readers shall be sufficiently familiar with Mr. Mill's view of causation, we will enter on one or two further details, which are not strictly necessary to our subsequent argument. We will consider briefly then a criticism which has sometimes been made on his view; viz. that, according to that view, day is the "cause" of night, and night of day. For our own part, we think he has sufficiently disproved this allegation. These are his words :

It is necessary to our using the word cause, that we should believe not only that the antecedent always has been followed by the consequent, but that, as long as the present constitution of things endures, it always will be so. And this would not be true of day and night. We do not believe that night will be followed by day under all imaginable circumstances, but only that it will be so provided the sun rises above the horizon. If the sun ceased to rise, which, for aught we know, may be perfectly compatible with the general laws of matter, night would be, or might be, eternal. On the other hand, if the sun is above the horizon, his light not extinct, and no opaque body between us and him, we believe firmly that unless a change takes place in the properties of matter, this combination of antecedents will be followed by the consequent, day; that if the combination of antecedents could be indefinitely prolonged, it would be always day; and that if the same combination had always existed, it would always have been day, quite independently of night as a previous condition. Therefore is it that we do not call night the cause, nor even a condition, of day. The existence of the sun (or some such luminous body), and there being no opaque medium in a straight line between that body and the part of the earth where we are situated, are the sole conditions, and the union of these, without the addition of any superfluous circumstance, constitutes the cause.-("Logic," i. 391.)

The considerations here set forth by Mr. Mill bear on another question, on which (as it seems to us) he has not quite done justice to his own theory. He says (i. 380) that there is no "scientific ground for the distinction between the cause of a phenomenon and its conditions." This certainly holds good (on his theory of causation) in regard to any such condition as intuitionists call a "condition sine quâ non"; but we doubt whether it holds good in regard to conditions in general. No instance is more commonly given as illustrating the distinction between a "condition" and "e cause," than the distinction between ploughing and sowing. Every intuitionist says as a matter of course, that there is a real relation of causality indeed, between due contact of seed with earth on one hand and the plant's growth on the other; but that the ploughing is a mere condition, and does not causally inflow into the effect. But it seems to us (though we by no means speak confidently and the matter is of no practical importance whatever), that on Mr. Mill's own theory also, the ploughing is not legitimately accounted part of the "cause." Let it be supposed that hitherto the joint presence of A, B, and C has been the invariable antecedent to M. It does not nevertheless therefore follow (on Mr. Mill's theory) that A is a partial cause of M, unless it be also true that, so long as the present laws of nature endure, the union of B and C will never be followed by M unless they are accompanied by A. Now it is included in the