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features which interest us in the stream itself. Thus we refer to the bend, and the stretch above the bend; or the rapids and the level below the rapids. In like manner in the coherent flow of events, we select the causes which interest us, and we name them by the effects through which they are expressed. Thus the death of a man is said to be due to the premature explosion of a charge, and this to the hasty firing of the fuse, and this to a reckless temper. Thought lays hold of those causes and conditions which are of moment in reference to the control of events. The mind is, therefore, even more likely to be attracted by secondary and variable conditions than by the fixed lines of forces, since it is through these conditions chiefly that it modifies events. An engine on a railroad fires the barns along its track, it is complained of as being constructed without a sufficient defense against scattering sparks. The defect is said to be the cause of the conflagrations.

Causes are divided into efficient causes, conditional causes and final causes. Strictly efficient causes are the forces which, interesting each other in the effect, occasion it; or these forces in some previous form. Thus the flying of the rocks is due to the expansive force of the gases imprisoned in the charge. The gunpowder is an efficient cause. The food which a workingman has eaten, and the weight and temper of his axe, are efficient causes in the felling of a tree. Evidently many lines of force may unite in an effect. Conditional causes are those things, actions, relations, which, without constituting a part of the efficient forces, determine the presence of these forces in the effect in an efficient form. Conditional causes are of quite as much practical interest as efficient causes, and may not be easily distinguishable from them. Drilling the hole, charging it and firing the fuse are conditional causes of blasting the rock.

Final causes are not causes. We mean by a final cause