THE ARGUMENT FROM CAUSATION.
The argument from causation may logically follow that from existence, of
which it may be regarded as a part. It is presented under various forms,
and when stated in a persuasive manner, is next to the argument from
design, probably as popular as any. The principal reason for this is, I
think, that very few people are concerned with thinking out exactly what
is meant by causation, and the proposition that every event must have a
cause, wins a ready assent, and when followed by the assertion that
therefore the universe must have had a cause, which is God, the
reasoning, or rather the parody of reasoning, appeals to many. There is
a show of reason and logic, but little more.
Quite unquestionably a great deals depends upon what is meant by
causation, and still more upon the use made of the law of causation by
theists. Thus we have seen it urged against Materialists that neural
activity cannot be the equivalent of thought because they do not
resemble each other. And in another direction we meet with the same idea
in the assertion that the cause must be equal to the effect, by which it
is apparently meant that the cause must be _similar_ to the effect, and
that unless we can discern in the cause the same qualities manifested by
the effect, we have not established the fact of causation at all.
The complete and perfect answer to this last view is that the qualities
manifest in an effect never are manifest in the cause, were it so it
would be impossible to distinguish one from the other. The theist is,
as is often the case, saying one thing and meaning another. What he says
is that the cause must be adequate to the effect. There is no dispute
here. But what he proceeds to argue is that the effect must be
discernible in the cause, which is a different statement altogether.
When he says that an effect cannot be greater than its cause, what he
means is that an effect cannot be different from its cause, which is
downright nonsense. He asks, How can that which has not life produce
life? as though the question were on all fours with the necessity for a
man to possess twenty shillings before he can give change for a
sovereign.
Of course, the reply to all this is that the factors which when combined
produce an effect always "give" something of which when uncombined they
show no trace. There is no trace; of sweetness in the constituents of
sugar of lead, or of blueness in the constituents of blue vitriol. In
not a single case, if we are to follow the logic of the theist, is there
a cause adequate to produce an effect, if we are to follow the reasoning
of some theists; in each case we should have to assume some occult agent
as responsible for the result. In reality and in strict scientific
truth, it is of the very essence of causation that there shall be
present in the effect some quality or qualities that are not present in
the cause. And all the confusion may be eliminated if there is borne in
mind the simple and single consideration that in studying an effect it
is the qualities of a combination with which we are properly concerned.
And to expect to find in analysis that which is the product of synthesis
is in the highest degree absurd.
Sir Oliver Lodge in his little work on "Life and Matter" properly
corrects the fallacy with which I have been dealing, and points out that
"properties can be possessed by an aggregate or an assemblage of
particles, which in the particles themselves did not in the slightest
degree exist." But in his desire to find a basis for his theism
immediately falls into an error in an opposite direction. We are on safe
ground, he says, in asserting that "whatever is in a part must be in the
whole." This is true if it is meant that as the whole contains the part,
the part is in the whole. But in that sense the statement was hardly
worth the making. What his argument demands is the meaning that as man
is possessed of mind, and as man is part of nature, therefore nature, as
a whole, manifests mind. And that is not true. Mind may be a special
manifestation of a special arrangement of forces, and only occurring
under special conditions. What Sir Oliver says, then, is that the
properties of a part are in the whole, because the part is included in
whole. What he implies, and without this implication his argument is
meaningless, is that the properties of a part belong to all parts of the
whole. And that is a statement so grotesquely untrue that I suspect Sir
Oliver would be the first to disown the plain implications of his own
argument.
And here is Sir Oliver's illustration of his argument:--
"the fact an apple has pips legitimises the assertion that an apple
tree has pips ... but it would be a childish misunderstanding to
expect to find actual pips in the trunk of a tree."
Now, why should the fact that an apple has pips legitimise the
statement that an apple tree has pips, any more than it legitimises the
statement that the soil from which it springs has pips? And if the tree
has not actual pips, in what sense does it possess them? If the reply is
that it possesses them potentially, one may meet that with the rejoinder
that potentially pips, and everything else, including Sir Oliver Lodge,
were contained in the primitive nebulae. As a matter of fact the apple
tree does not contain pips either actually or potentially. In his
championship of theism our scientist forgets his science. What the apple
tree possesses is the capacity for building up a fruit with pips _with
the aid of material extracted from the soil beneath and from the air
around_. These pips are no more in the tree than they are in the air or
the soil--not even as a figure of speech. One might, from any point of
view, as reasonably look for the colour and shape and smell of an apple
in the tree as to look for the pips. The properties of the tree is
really one of the factors in the production of a result. Sir Oliver
makes the mistake of writing as though the tree was the only factor in
the problem.
This is not the place in which to enter on an exhaustive inquiry as to
the nature of causation. It is enough to point out that the whole
theistic fallacy rests here on the assumption that we are dealing with
two things, when as a matter of fact we are dealing with only one. Cause
and effect are not two separate things, they are the same thing viewed
under two different aspects. When, for example, I ask for the cause of
gunpowder and am told that it is sulphur, charcoal, and nitre, or for a
cause of sulphuric acid and am given sulphide of iron and oxygen, it is
clear that considered separately these ingredients are not causes at
all. Whether charcoal and sulphur will become part of the cause of
gunpowder or not will depend upon the presence of the third agent;
whether sulphide of iron will rank as part of the cause of sulphuric
acid will depend upon the presence of oxygen. In every case it is the
assemblage of appropriate factors that constitute a real cause. But
given the factors, gunpowder does not follow their assemblage, it is
their assemblage that is expressed by the result. There is no succession
in time, the result is instantaneous with the assemblage of the factors.
The effect is the registration, so to speak, of the combination of the
factors.
Now if what has been said be admitted as correct the argument for the
existence of God as based upon the fact of causation breaks down
completely. If cause and effect are the expressions of a relation, and
if they are not two things, but only one, under two aspects, "cause"
being the name for the related powers of the factors, and "effect" the
name for their assemblage, to talk, as does the theist, of working back
along the chain of causes until we reach God, is nonsense. Even if we
could achieve this feat of regression, we could not reach by this means
a God distinct from the universe. For, as discovering the cause of any
effect means no more than analysing an effect into its factors, the
problem would ultimately be that of dealing with the question of how
something already existing transformed itself into the existing
universe. A form of a very doubtful Pantheism might be reached in this
way, but not theism.
But here a fresh difficulty presents itself to the theist. A cause, as
I have pointed out, must consist of at least two factors or two forces.
This is absolutely indispensable. But assuming that we have got back to
a point prior to the existence of the universe, we have on the theistic
theory, not two factors, but only one. The essential condition for an
act of causation is lacking. A single factor could only repeat itself.
By this method the theist might reach "God." But having got there, there
he would remain. He is left with God and nothing else, and with no
possibility of reaching anything else.
We land in the same dilemma if we pursue another road. Philosophers of
certain schools place existence in two categories. There is the world of
appearance (phenomena), and there is the world of reality or substance
(noumena). We know phenomena and their laws, they say, but no more. We
do not know, and cannot know, Substance in itself; and the theist
promptly adds that this unknown substance is but another name for God.
The philosopher also warns us against applying the laws of the
phenomenal world to noumena, reminding us that what we call "laws of
nature" have been devised to explain the world as it presents itself to
our consciousness. And to this we have the theological analogue in the
warning not to measure the infinite by the finite or to judge God by
human standards.
Now granting all this, let us see how the argument stands. The laws of
phenomena belong exclusively to the phenomenal world. Their application
and their validity are restricted to the world of phenomena. When we
leave this region we are in a sphere to which they are quite
inapplicable. What, then, can be meant by speaking of God as a "First
Cause"? Cause is a phenomenal term, it expresses the relations between
phenomena, and it has no meaning when applied to this assumed and
unknown reality. We are in the position of one who is trying to use a
colour scale in a world where vision does not exist. The theist is
trying, in a similar way, to use the conception of "cause," which is
created to express the relations between phenomena, in a world where
phenomena have no existence. Thus, when the theist, to use his own
words, has traced back an effect to a cause, and this to a prior cause,
and so on, till he has reached a "First Cause," what happens? Simply
this. At the end of the chain of phenomena the theist makes a mighty
jump and gains the noumenon. But between this and the phenomenon he can
establish no relation whatever. It cannot be a cause of phenomena
because on his own showing causation is a phenomenal thing. He has
worked back along the chain of causation, discarding link after link on
his journey. Finally, he reaches God and discards the lot. And here he
is left clinging with _no intelligible way of getting back again_. If on
the other hand, he relates God to phenomena he has failed to get what he
requires. He has merely added one more link to his chain of phenomena,
and the "first cause" remains as far off as ever. For if God is not
related to phenomena he ceases to be a cause of phenomena in the only
sense in which he is of use to the theistic hypothesis.
Further, one may ask, Why travel back along the chain of causation to
discover God? What is gained by travelling along an infinite series,
and saying suddenly, "At this point I espy God." Confessedly we may
trace back phenomena as far as we will without finding ourselves a step
nearer a commencement. All we get is a transformation of pre-existing
material into new forms. Consequently all the evidence that exists at
the moment we cease our journey existed when we began it. In short, if
God can be shown to be the efficient cause of phenomena anywhere, he can
be shown to be the cause everywhere, and the proof may be produced
through phenomena immediately at hand as well as from those removed from
us by an indefinite number of stages. The evidence becomes neither
stronger nor more relevant by being put farther back. Proof is not like
wine, its quality does not improve with age. To say that we must pause
somewhere may be true, but that is only reminding us that both human
time and human energy are limited. But it is certainly foolish to first
of all induce mental exhaustion, and then use it as the equivalent of a
positive and valuable discovery.
And even though by some undiscovered method we had reached that
metaphysical nightmare a cause of all phenomena, and in defiance of all
intelligibility had christened it a "First Cause," how would that
satisfy the "causal craving"? Professor Campbell Fraser very properly
says that "the old form of each new phenomenon as much needs explanation
as the new form itself did, and this need is certainly neither satisfied
nor destroyed by referring one form of existence to another." If A. is
explained by B. we are driven to explain B. by C., and so on
indefinitely. Or if we can stop with A. or B. then the causal craving
is not so persistent as was supposed, and man can rest content within
the limit of recognised limitations. For what Professor Fraser calls an
"absolutely originating cause" is only such so long as we have not
reached it. We are satisfied with an imaginary B. as an explanation of
the actual A. so long as B. does not come within our grasp. So soon as
it has become the originating cause of the phenomenon in hand we are off
on a further search. "First" has no other intelligible sense or meaning
than this. "First" in relation to a given cluster of phenomenon we may
grant; "First" in the sense of calling for no further explanation is
downright theological lunacy.
An eternal "First cause" could only be such in relation to an eternal
effect. And in that case it could not be _prior_ to the effect since the
effect is only the existing factors combined. Causation cannot carry us
_beyond_ phenomena since it has no meaning apart from phenomena. The
notion that because every phenomenon has a cause therefore there must be
a cause for phenomena as a whole--meaning by this for the sum total of
phenomena--is wholly absurd. It is not sound science, it is not good
philosophy, it is not even commonsense. It is simply nonsense which is
given an air of dignity because it is clothed in philosophic language.
You cannot rise from phenomena to the theist's God; first, because, as I
have said, cause and effect are names for the relation that is seen to
exist between one phenomenon and another, and the theist is seeking
after something that is above all relations. To postulate something that
is not phenomena as the cause of phenomena, is like discussing the
possibility of a bird's flight and dismissing the possibility of an
atmosphere. Secondly, causation can give no clue to a God because the
search for causes is a search for the conditions under which phenomena
occur. And when we have described these conditions we have fulfilled all
the conditions required to establish an act of causation. The theist, in
short, commences with a wrong conception of causation. He proceeds by
applying to one sphere language and principles from another, and to
which they can have no possible application, and where they have no
intelligibility. And having completely confused the issue, he ends with
a conclusion which, even on his own showing, has no logical relation to
the premises laid down.