have always enjoyed, and under which the church has flourished for three hundred years."-Speech of the Archbishop of Canterbury in the House of Lords, July 12th, 1851.

SECTION VI.

THE RELATION OF CAUSE AND EFFECT-CONDITIONAL CAUSES. A CONDITIONAL cause is a circumstance, or state of things, which is necessary to the production of an effect, but which does not actively produce that effect.

Thus, if a man fall from his horse, it is a necessary condition that he should previously have been on his horse, otherwise he could not have fallen. If a man is hanged for forgery, the active or efficient cause of his being hanged is the commission of the crime; but if he had never learned to write, he could not have committed a forgery; hence his knowledge of writing is a necessary condition.

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As the condition does not thus actively, or necessarily produce the effect, we do not usually use the words conditional cause and "effect," but we say the "condition," and the "sign." Thus, a physician feels the pulse of his patient, to ascertain the state of his health; the state of health is the condition, the state of the pulse is the sign. Now, a man may be in a bad state of health, and yet his pulse may be regular: the existence of the condition is no proof of the existence of the sign. But if the pulse be irregular, it shows that the health is disturbed: the existence of the sign is a proof of the existence of the condition.

So it is a necessary condition to the performance of any act, that the man who performs it should be alive. Now then, if a will is produced of a date some years subsequent to the death of the alleged testator, it proves that the will is a forgery. The man might have been alive without making a will, but he could not have made a will unless he had been alive. The condition must have preceded the sign.

1. This relation of condition and sign supplies us with various modes of reasoning.

From the non-existence of the condition, we infer the non-existence of the sign.

Qualifications, instruments, and opportunities are necessary conditions to the performance of any act. If we prove the absence of these we prove the non-performance of the act. If a man has committed murder, it is a necessary condition, that he should have been at the place when the murder was committed, and at the time the murder was committed. Now, if he can prove an alibi, (this word is Latin for elsewhere,) that is, if he can prove that he was at a distant place at the time the murder was committed, this proves that he did not commit the murder. The nonexistence of the condition proves the non-existence of the sign. But you cannot reverse this rule. The existence of the condition will not of itself prove the existence of the sign; for he might have been at the place where, and at the time when, the murder was committed, and yet might not have committed the murder. It might have been committed by some of his companions.

Again, from the existence of the sign we infer the existence of the condition.

Take the same instance. If a man is proved to have committed a murder, it proves the condition, that he was at the place where, and at the time when, the murder was committed. But if it is proved that he did not commit the murder, that is in itself no proof that he was not present when the murder was committed. The nonexistence of the sign is no proof of the non-existence of the condition.

Sometimes it is contended in favour of a proposed measure, that it is a necessary condition, i.e. a conditional cause, to some other measure of still greater importance.

Thus the Earl of Shaftesbury advocated in the House of Lords the establishment of Lodging Houses for the poor, upon the ground that domestic comfort is a necessary condition to their intellectual and moral improvement.

"Could their Lordships suppose that these physical evils produced no mischievous moral consequences? He was sorry to have to inform them that they produced the most fatal and deadly consequences. They generated habits of drinking-they led to the overthrow of decency. Every function of nature was performed in public-there was no retirement for any purpose-for any purpose; there was no domestic education-nay, education

itself was useless, if children returned to their homes to unlearn by example what they had learned elsewhere by precept. He grieved to reflect that in these dens there could be no domestic training of that description which was more valuable than any other training the training of the mother; and that the want of such domestic training could not be compensated by any system of public education which could be devised. This he saw daily. He had, as many of their lordships perhaps knew, been for some time connected with the ragged schools recently established in the metropolis. Most of the ragged children whom they saw about the streets attended those schools, and not, he trusted, without benefit. A young boy or girl received there useful lessons, but they returned to the single room, in which six families might be residing, without any regard to the restraints which were necessary for a social, moral, and religious life; and they lost, in one hour, all the decent impressions which they had gained in the previous six. Until this source of evil were removed, all your hopes to improve the morals of your people, all your efforts to give them a useful and religious education, will be vain. You must stop this welling fountain of disaster, if you would carry into execution the benevolent and provident views which you, in common with all who have property to protect, entertain towards the lower class."

Dr. Hamilton uses the same kind of argument in his Sermon upon early closing the shops in London :

Vainly, my friends, shall we multiply the means of rational instruction if we do not shorten the hours of labour. Vainly shall libraries and reading-rooms hold out their attractions, and vainly shall popular lectures and polytechnic exhibitions keep open till late at night, unless, along with the lecture or the show, we give the leisure to look and listen. And vainly shall kindhearted tradesmen treat their hands to an occasional holiday evening, in order to visit some instructive sight or hear some appropriate address,-unless the boon be prolonged and perpetuated: unless time be afforded to follow up the study, or drink again the stream they have once tasted."

By a similar mode of reasoning we sometimes adduce a precept to prove a doctrine, the truth of which seems a necessary condition to the justice of the command. Thus the commands of Scripture to repent, believe, obey, imply as a necessary condition that man has the power to repent, believe and obey. The threatenings of punishment imply as a necessary condition that man is a free agent; otherwise he could not justly incur punishment. So Arch

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bishop Whately cites an injunction to almsgiving as a scriptural authority for the institution of property :

"It is plain from this, and from many other such injunctions of the apostles, that they did not intend to destroy, among Christians, the security of property which leads to the distinction between the rich and the poor. For, their exhortations to the rich, to be kind and charitable to the poor, would have been absurd, if they had not allowed that any of their people should be rich. And there could be no such thing as charity in giving anything to the poor, if it were not left to each man's free choice, to give or spend what is his own. Indeed, nothing can be called your own, which you are not left free to dispose of as you will. The very nature of charity implies that it must be voluntary; for no one can be properly said to give anything that he has no power to withhold."-Easy Lessons on Money Matters.

2. You will observe, that much erroneous reasoning has taken place from confounding the conditional with the active cause.

In cases where a number of causes, some active, and some only conditional, conspire to produce the same effect, it is not always easy to distinguish between the active and the conditional causes. This difficulty is often experienced in the investigation of historical facts. Thus, it has been said that the Reformation was the cause of all the wars in Germany in the fifteenth century. The Reformation was certainly a condition, for if there had been no Reformation, there could have been no fighting about it. But it was only the condition, the active cause of those wars was the interference of those hostile parties, who would not allow the people to follow the convictions of their own judgments.

In the following argument the existence of the condition is insisted on as essential to the sign.

it;

"No man will excel in his profession if he thinks himself above and commerce will never flourish in any country where commerce is not respected. Commerce flourished in England, because there a merchant was respected, and was thought worthy of the highest honour his country could bestow. Commerce never flourished in France, because there it was despised; and the character of un riche bourgeois, a rich citizen, was the character which their dramatic writers were fond of introducing as the subject of ridicule. Commerce will never flourish in a country where young men, whose fathers are barely able to maintain a genteel appearance, think it beneath their rank to enter a counting-house, and

prefer sustaining the character of segar-smoking loungers. Commerce will never flourish in a country where property acquired by industry is considered less deserving of respect than property acquired by inheritance. Commerce will never flourish in a country where men in business, instead of bringing up their sons to the same business, think it more respectable to send them to professions. Commerce will never flourish in a country where men, as soon as they get a few thousand pounds by trade, are anxious to get out of trade, and to mix with the society of the fashionable world."-Lectures on Commerce.

3. This principle of reasoning is used very extensively in the examination of evidence adduced in our Courts of Law. Sometimes parties are accused of crimes, to the perpetration of which there were no witnesses. Their guilt is inferred from the circumstances of the case. This is called "circumstantial evidence," and sometimes "presumptive evidence," as the guilt is presumed from the circumstances adduced. Some lawyers have maintained that circumstantial evidence is more conclusive than direct evidence, as there is no danger from the perjury of the witnesses. But others have thought differently. No certain rules can be given for circumstantial evidence. Each cause must depend upon itself. The reader will remember, that within a short period, several atrocious criminals have been convicted upon circumstantial evidence.

The following are some general remarks on this kind of evidence :

"The force and effect of circumstantial evidence depend upon its incompatibility with, and incapability of, explanation or solution upon any other supposition. than that of the truth of the fact which it is adduced to prove; the mode of argument resembling the method of demonstration by the reductio ad absurdum.”

"These circumstances may be considered under the heads of motives to crime,-declarations indicative of intention, preparations for the commission of crime,—possession of the fruits of crime,-refusal to account for appearances of suspicion, or unsatisfactory explanations of such appearances,-evidence indirectly confessional,and the suppression, destruction, simulation, and fabrication of evidence."