as our observation has extended, has happened in accordance with causal laws. The law of universal causation, suggested by these facts, may be enunciated as follows:
“There are such invariable relations between different events at the same or different times that, given the state of the whole universe throughout any finite time, however short, every previous and subsequent event can theoretically be determined as a function of the given events during that time.”
Have we any reason to believe this universal law? Or, to ask a more modest question, have we any reason to believe that a particular causal law, such as the law of gravitation, will continue to hold in the future?
Among observed causal laws is this, that observation of uniformities is followed by expectation of their recurrence. A horse who has been driven always along a certain road expects to be driven along that road again; a dog who is always fed at a certain hour expects food at that hour and not at any other. Such expectations, as Hume pointed out, explain only too well the common-sense belief in uniformities of sequence, but they afford absolutely no logical ground for beliefs as to the future, not even for the belief that we shall continue to expect the continuation of experienced uniformities, for that is precisely one of those causal laws for which a ground has to be sought. If Hume’s account of causation is the last word, we have not only no reason to suppose that the sun will rise to-morrow, but no reason to suppose that five minutes hence we shall still expect it to rise to-morrow.
It may, of course, be said that all inferences as to the future are in fact invalid, and I do not see how such a view could be disproved. But, while admitting the legitimacy of such a view, we may nevertheless inquire:
