Excerpt from On Causation: With a Chapter on Belief<br><br>Exasperated by the fatuity of an expert in heraldry whom he was cross-examining, Sir William Harcourt at length exclaimed: 'why, the silly man does not understand even his own silly business!' The reader of a book on orthodox Logic is constantly tempted to make the same comment. Every book on Inductive Logic contains a chapter in which an attempt is made to investigate the nature Of Causation, to define it, and to explain how causes are ascertained and assigned but why Causation should be considered subject-matter of Logic, any more than rotation or imitation, is hard to understand. The, proper task Of Logic is to describe and explain the principles and methods Of reasoning, and causation is not a principle or' method of reasoning, nor is the definition Of causation or the ascertainment Of causation a principle or method Of reasoning. These are applications Of reasoning. They are examples of: reasoning] The results are arrived at by methods of reasoning, but they are not themselves methods principles Of reasoning, and are, therefore, no part Of Logic. Mill says, and all sub sequent writers have followed him, that causation lies at the very root of Induction. It does nothing Of the sort. It is; one of very many relations that may be discovered by Induc tion, but it is no more the basis Of Induction than rotation or imitation is the basis Of Induction.<br><br>About the Publisher<br><br>Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com<br><br>This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.