We can not ascertain general truths, that is, truths applicable to classes, unless we have formed the classes in such a manner that general truths can be affirmed of them. In the formation of any class, there is involved a conception of it as a class, that is, a conception of certain circumstances as being those which characterize the class, and distinguish the objects composing it from all other things. When we know exactly what these circumstances are, we have a clear idea (or conception) of the class, and of the meaning of the general name which designates it. The primary condition implied in having this clear idea, is that the class be really a class; that it correspond to a real distinction; that the things it includes really do agree with one another in certain particulars, and differ, in those same particulars, from all other things. A person without clear ideas is one who habitually classes together, under the same general names, things which have no common properties, or none which are not possessed also by other things; or who, if the usage of other people prevents him from actually misclassing things, is unable to state to himself the common properties in virtue of which he classes them rightly. Trenton saw a letter which, save for names, was the exact counterpart of the letter which had been delivered to him by the two Customs officials after they had finished their search. § 7. In the preceding discussion we have recognized two kinds of empirical laws: those known to be laws of causation, but presumed to be resolvable into simpler laws; and those not known to be laws of causation at all. Both these kinds of laws agree in the demand which they make for being explained by deduction, and agree in being the appropriate means of verifying such deduction, since they represent the experience with which the result of the deduction must be compared. They agree, further, in this, that until explained, and connected with the ultimate laws from which they result, they have not attained the highest degree of certainty of which laws are susceptible. It has been shown on a former occasion that lawsof causation which are derivative, and compounded of simpler laws, are not only, as the nature of the case implies, less general, but even less certain, than the simpler laws from which they result; not in the same degree to be relied on as universally true. The inferiority of evidence, however, which attaches to this class of laws, is trifling, compared with that which is inherent in uniformities not known to be laws of causation at all. So long as these are unresolved, we can not tell on how many collocations, as well as laws, their truth may be dependent; we can never, therefore, extend them with any confidence to cases in which we have not assured ourselves, by trial, that the necessary collocation of causes, whatever it may be, exists. It is to this class of laws alone that the property, which philosophers usually consider as characteristic of empirical laws, belongs in all its strictness—the property of being unfit to be relied on beyond the limits of time, place, and circumstance in which the observations have been made. These are empirical laws in a more emphatic sense; and when I employ that term (except where the context manifestly indicates the reverse) I shall generally mean to designate those uniformities only, whether of succession or of co-existence, which are not known to be laws of causation. Dont worry, we had a fuse box just like that when I was a child. If a fuse blows, I’ll be able to fix it.’ The other men partially lifted him to the ground. Rob had a brief glimpse of trees, the shimmer of afternoon sun on water, and then a blindfold was whipped over his eyes and tied tightly into position. He put his dignified air back on and said:My personal feelings are, after all, my own affair and concern. In retrospect, I think she meant that we were cross-examining her. I think she meant to say,I refuse to be cross-examined! No one is cross-examining her now. Dr. Lang is merely listening. Thats right, they can’t, Aaron said. So shut up. 222 I took all the time I needed to make sure and let go at the second man of the three. He was all I could see, at the time, but during the second it took me to get him centered right and squeeze the trigger, I heard a little gun go off three times and a damned big one crash once. The little gun sounded like a kids cap pistol against the noise of the cannon. My own gun’s recoil threw my hand up but the second man of the three was out of the picture. I was sure of it. I’d seen his shoulders lined up against the front sight just as I shot and knew he was all through. I saw the one that had managed to get out of the booth down on the floor, saw Macintosh still standing in the doorway, and then shouted at the third man: Drop it, you dope! He said, with the drawl gone:Okey, fella. Im on my way down there. D’ya want me to take his pal, too? He does not even try to hide the fact from me. Perhaps hes forgotten that he told us he quit smoking five years ago. Or perhaps he no longer gives a damn what he told us. There is certainly an arrogant swagger to the manner in which he deliberately takes a huge puff as I approach, and then blows the smoke on the air like a factory smokestack belching pollutants. I doubt it. Why would there be anything in her letters? Because we wrote down the numbers on the gun, and then it was locked in the desk at the suggestion of one of the parties. Oops. Ill take the responsibility, Dr. Dixon added. I believe Mr. Ostrander took the key and put it somewhere, or maybe he kept it. He said that we should take great pains to see that the gun was kept so it could be turned over to the police... that is, that nothing happened to it. Of course, at that timeno one, not a single one of us, had any idea a man had been killed. We thought it was just another smuggling gang..