[Footnote 3:] The modification was that causation is not only "invariable" but also "unconditional" sequence. This addition of unconditionality as part of the meaning of cause, after defining cause as the sum total of the conditions, is very much like arguing in a circle. After all, the only point recognised in the theory as observable is the invariability of the sequence. But this is less important than the fact that in his canons of the Experimental Methods Mill recognised that more is observable.
Chapter IV.
METHODS OF OBSERVATION.—SINGLE DIFFERENCE.
I.—The Principle of Single Difference.— Mill's "Canon".
On what principle do we decide, in watching a succession of phenomena, that they are connected as cause and effect, that one happened in consequence of the happening of another? It may be worded as follows:—
When the addition of an agent is followed by the appearance or its subtraction by the disappearance of a certain effect, no other influential circumstance having been added or subtracted at the same time or in the meantime, and no change having occurred among the original circumstances, that agent is a cause of the effect.
On this principle we would justify our belief in the causal properties of common things—that fire burns, that food appeases hunger, that water quenches thirst, that a spark ignites gunpowder, that taking off a tight shoe relieves a pinched foot. We have observed the effect following when there was no other change in the antecedent circumstances, when the circumstance to which we refer it was simply added to or subtracted from the prior situation.
Suppose we doubt whether a given agent is or is not capable of producing a certain effect in certain circumstances, how do we put it to the proof? We add it singly or subtract it singly, taking care that everything else remains as before, and watch the result. If we wish to know whether a spoonful of sugar can sweeten a cup of tea, we taste the tea without the sugar, then add the sugar, and taste again. The isolated introduction of the agent is the proof, the experiment. If we wish to know whether a pain in the foot is due to a tight lacing, we relax the lacing and make no other change: if the pain then disappears, we refer it to the lacing as the cause. The proof is the disappearance of the pain on the subtraction of the single antecedent.