The Grammar of Science - Chapter IV

Chapter IV

"Cause and Effect - Probability"

1. Cause is scientifically used to denote an antecedent stage in a routine of perceptions. In this sense, "force" as a cause is meaningless. First cause is only a limit, permanent or temporary, to knowledge. No instance, certainly not "will," occurs in our experience of an arbitrary first cause in the popular sense of the word.
2. There is no inherent necessity in the routine of perceptions, but the permanent existence of rational beings necessitates a routine of perceptions; the possibility of a thinking being ceases with the cessation of routine. The only necessity we are acquainted with exists in the sphere of conceptions; routine in perceptions may possibly be due to the constitution of the perceptive faculty.
3. Proof in the field of perceptions is the demonstration of overwhelming probability. Logically we ought to use the word know only of conceptions, and reserve the word believe for perceptions. "I know that the angle at the circumference on any diameter of a circle is right," but "I believe that the sun will rise tomorrow." The proof that a breach of routine will not occur for a finite future depends upon the solid experience that we are ignorant only in areas in which, statistically, all constitutions of the unknown are found to be equally probable.