The connection between views about causation and attempts to justify inductive reasoning is sufficiently close that some philosophers2have taken success at the latter as a litmus test for the truth of the former. I do not agree with this approach. Like Hume, I believe that the nature of causal connections must be understood prior to, and independently of, solutions to the problem of induction. Like Hume, I also hold that the problem of induction cannot be solved if Hume's analysis of causal connections is correct. But unlike Hume, I believe that that analysis is incorrect. However, I shall not attempt to establish this crucial thesis here. I mention it because this paper presupposes it. Hume's difficulty about causation must—and can—be faced head‐on. There are phenomenological grounds for affirming that we sometimes directly experience nonlogical, necessary connections between events. I shall only briefly summarize these grounds, which will be argued for in detail elsewhere. The purpose of this paper is to explore the extent to which a necessitarian theory of causation can bring the problem of induction closer to sol