which effect is the visible connection. In the posteriori inference of an effect, it is clear that we have within supposed control these conditions. But in inferring a cause, the conditions are as obviously lacking. Unless we can reproduce them and so test the inference, the meaning of the present with reference to the past should always be clast as probability rather than knowledge.

Of this nature is all historical, so-cald knowledge. Being unable to reproduce the conditions, their existence as well as their interpretation is always an assumption merely. That the effect is a connection we may affirm generally. But what kind of connection cannot be known except in so far as we control the factors of reproduction. Search for a cause, in other words, in confirmation of an hypothesis, must be search for the origin of some particular impression, regarded as a connection.

Cause, as the source of an effect, is assumed by Hume to be synonymous with a power of production. Search of all qualities and all impressions fails to show such a power. All simple impressions are just what they seem; they do not conceal within their folds a something else. In seeking power, Hume assumes it should be a general quality or idea, common to all impressions whatsoever. But power, as one of a set of concrete conditions on which connection is based, is always a very particular and very definit quality. Any quality is a power when conceivd with reference to its ability to combine and to resist combination. Complete cause is simply the organization of these so-cald powers, combining and resisting combination.

In common thought and language, however, that factor or aspect of cause which is most activ or dynamic is generally isolated and set up to represent the complete cause. Other factors are assumed or ignored. Thus, water, wind, heat, gravity, steam, and electricity are spoken of as "powers." But they are powers only in so far as they are the dynamic or kinetic phases of a situation of which the other elements are static or potential. It is a peculiarity of the human mind that attention will seize upon and emphasize the activ and moving side of a complex at the expense of the static and quiescent factors. In seeking for cause, moreover, it is evident that there could have been no connection thru conjunction unless some one or all of the antecedent simple impressions were activ and moving. For the above reasons in asking for a cause or power of production, we usually mean the dynamic, connecting factor in a situation.

While the kinetic aspect of an impression may be separated and interpreted as a connecting factor in a complex situation, it should

not be regarded as a connection on the one hand nor as the whole cause on the other. In both of these assumptions, Hume's error lies. As a simple impression, "power of production" can never produce anything. It can only bring to the point of conjunction certain elements, regarded as potential. Among these elements will be the particular form with which activity is generated. Applying this form, as distinguisht from function, to complexes, generally, it may or may not be a connecting factor. It is the function and not the form that can be generalized as efficient cause. Standing thus between apparent static factors and their effect, the kinetic aspect of a situation may be mistaken for a connection. Hume refers to power of production and connection as synonymous. But connection, as a change alredy accomplisht, is easily distinguisht from a dynamic factor of the antecedent complex. The former may be used as ground for inference, while the latter can be regarded as an explanation for conjunction only.

Up to this point it has been assumed that cause and effect may be arbitrarily defined as applied to separate impressions. But the same impression is often regarded as either a cause or an effect. Take, for example, flame; this impression may be regarded as the cause of light and heat or as the effect of friction.

As a cause, flame is an impression in which we either find light and heat or from which we infer them. In the former case the qualities are parts of a complex impression which is no more truly their cause than an apple is the cause of a sweet and juicy taste. In both cases, the qualities are relations which give the complex its meaning or identity. In the latter case, however, having an impression of light or heat only, we infer its complement, and Hume asks that a rational basis for this inference be set forth.

In referring heat from a light cald flame, it is evident that we must assume a change in the situation; otherwise we would not experience heat. This change may possibly be a movement of ourselves towards the flame. In this event, according to what has been before stated, we should refer to ourselves as the cause of heat since we have been the connecting factor. Apparently, however, we prefer to regard ourselves as a controlling rather than as a causal factor. The heat was there in the flame to be senst or not as we chose or were able. In this particular example, moreover, heat often appears from flame without any movement on our part and the connecting factor must accordingly be placed there somewhere.

It is plain that flame, as we sense it without heat, cannot be the same flame that we sense with heat. If flame in which heat ap

pears be a cause, then flame in which it does not appear cannot be so. Letting heat represent the connection or point of change in flame, then the latter can be a cause only by being represented as a connecting medium between heat and some other impression. The only other impression possible is the material from which flame springs. But as this is a static mass, or so regarded, it can hardly account for heat as change in flame. To account for this we must observe that flame itself is continually moving, changing and growing. Just as motion in the billiard ball is a passing and a becoming, so flame is seen to be a flickering, coming and going. And as motion cannot be defined except in terms of static things, so also flame as a connecting activity, can be defined only at such places as it can be caught and stopt. As a connecting activity, therefore, flame may be regarded as continually changing until it reaches the point at least where we sense the change as heat. And in inferring heat from flame, the inference is based, not only on heat as a connection but also upon flame as announcing the presumable conjunction of factors necessary to the development of the impression or effect.

Regarding flame as an effect we simply carry back one step the process alredy described. Seeking its cause, we may ascribe it to "scratching a match." In a match we have wood, sulfur and phosphorus as separate impressions and it is clear that alone or conjoind, they cannot be the efficient cause of flame. They are potential elements, lacking as yet the connecting factor. Ignoring entirely our own act in "scratching," we may explain flame as the union of heat and phosphorus. In this union the intervening activity is the oxygen of the air. Again taking heat as an effect, its efficient cause is pressure or friction between two surfaces. So the phase,-"scratching a match," takes in the entire cause and may be verified at any time.

Whether an impression be regarded as a cause or an effect depends upon whether we use it as a medium for explanation or as something which itself needs explanation. In the former case it is cald a cause and in the latter an effect. As an explanatory relation, the impression selected may or may not fulfill all requirements. Frequently conditions more important than the one named are assumed. Possibly the conditions assumed are to be considerd so manifest as to need no attention. As something to be explaind the same thing holds true. Where, however, we desire control with a view to reproducing or avoiding an effect, then the whole cause must be made. explicit and formulated as a method:-embracing both conditions and connecting activity; comprehending both what and how. As a basis for inference, such a method leaves the relm of probability and enters that of science.

The subject of cause has many aspects and may be described from many points of view. But if the above discussion has achievd its purpose, it will be seen that, as a practical operation, reasoning from cause and effect is neither impossible nor mysterious. All impressions, in a way, represent activity; a stress and a strain; a push and a pull, whether static or dynamic. As such, given any two as conditions and we may infer a third as effect. The escape from Hume's difficulty is so simple that it is ridiculous. If insted of positing cause and effect as two separate and distinct entities or events, we posit three or more activ principles, it follows that no matter how we name or regard them we can get from them an explanation of the past and the future. The only difficulty in practis is in finding and in accurately defining the conditions.

A

The World a Moral Order

SAMUEL F. HALFYARD,

Professor of Philosophy and Theology, Wesley College

STUDY of the moral nature of man indicates that human life

is morally constituted and governd. It affords unmistakable evidence that man is under moral law which can be explaind only as we look beyond life to some higher reality by which it is supported. The moral sense of the individual proves that human conduct must be regulated according to certain norms that are transcendent and that have their source in the Eternal. It proves that the world in which we live is not a chaos devoid of law and order but a cosmos which is controld by fixt moral principles. And what holds true for the individual holds true for society in the large. Human society is a moral institution with moral ideals and moral ends. The course of history and the progress of mankind evidence the presence of moral laws. Everywhere thruout the structure of society, in its laws, customs, and beliefs are discoverd marks which announce that it is morally constituted.

We begin with the individual. That man possesses a moral nature cannot be denied. There is found in the hart of every rational being a moral law which proclaims the unalterable distinction between right and wrong, good and evil. There is within the soul a monitor, whose voice is heard when moral choices are being made. And from the admonitions and constrainings of this inner voice there is no escape or release. Its commands of duty, its ought or ought not, is ever present in consciousness. Did one attempt to eliminate this moral sense from his mental constitution he would find it a hopeless task. Even if man be the creature of chance and the sport of mechanical forces which ultimately fling him aside his development must nevertheless be determind by this moral law. As the nature of the tree is determind by the seed from which it springs so experience must take its form from this moral germ. It would be easier to untwist the light from the sunbeam than to eradicate the moral instinct from the soul. It is deeply rooted in the hart and manifested in the manifold activities of the will.

But it may be askt, How is the true character of the moral sense to be defined? How is the province of the moral nature to be determind or its function understood? The moral nature may be defined as the power by which we distinguish between right