Causation differs from all other categories in that one of its
elements is mental. It is a series beginning in the mind--in this
relation denominated _cause_--and developing into objective phenomena
called _effects_ or an effect. The series being known by judgment
we can infer similar causes from perception of similar effects. The
commonest causation is the use and interpretation of language. Because
we utter words from a certain motive we infer that all who utter
the same words do so from the same motive. That is the reason of the
intelligibility of words.
This category is peculiar from the extremely narrow range of the
experience which supplies the judgments. We never perceive any mind
but one--our own--and this has to supply all the judgments by which we
reason concerning other minds. There is therefore no category in which
correct reasoning is so difficult and so rare. No amount of experience
entirely overcomes this defect, for if we are ignorant we cannot
understand the wise, and if we are wise we cannot conceive the motives
of the ignorant and vicious. Only those persons who are mentally very
like each other are mutually comprehensible.
This category has a further peculiarity. In all the rest the inference
relates to objective experience, and this being due to interaction of
minds we are justified in saying that until it is perceived it has no
existence. But in causation we are inferring something with reference
to a mind, and this exists though we never can perceive it. We know
that minds exist without perception because we know that our own
exists though no one perceives us--though we are in total darkness and
silence and cannot ourselves perceive our bodies. As already stated,
Existence has not the same meaning when applied to objects and
to minds, objects being merely temporary conditions of minds. The
non-existence of inferred but unperceived objects does not follow from
any defect in the faculty of inference, but depends on the essential
character of objects. They are created by mutual contact of minds
and cannot exist without that condition, however clearly they may be
inferred and however correctly their appearance may be predicted.
Causation is confounded with sequence because both are series. Let
me illustrate the difference between them by an example. I turn the
stop-cock of a pipe, and water flows from the open end of the pipe.
In popular and even scientific language it would be said that I caused
the water to flow. But this is incorrect. All I caused was the turning
of the tap; that alone was wholly due to my energy and intelligence.
There followed as a sequence the outflow of water, but that was due
partly to cosmic force and partly to the previous human causation (not
mine) implied in making and laying down the pipe so as to utilise the
cosmic force. I merely removed an obstacle that prevented the further
development of the force in a particular direction. My relation to the
outflow was sequence, not causation.
In observation sequence registers fixed or probable series of
_objects_ without regard to their causes. It is sufficient if they
occur regularly enough to justify prediction. Causation, on the other
hand, pays no regard to physical connection of any sort, but seeks
out the being or beings who supplied the energy producing an effect or
series of effects. The speculations in causation pass quite beyond the
domain of objectivity, over into the realm of true creation.
When we read that 'the succession of events is an endless chain of
effects which are in their turn causes of new effects,' what is meant
is sequence, and for 'cause' and 'effect' the terms 'antecedent' and
'consequent' should have been employed. Sequences may be 'chains' and
may be long, but if so their links have been forged by independent
causes acting _across_ the chain; as when a line of soldiers fire
in succession at regular intervals, or as in the case of the moon's
quarters. In these instances the objects, although forming a series,
has each a cause of its own.
Certainly a causation is a series, for the cause precedes the effect.
But an effect is never the cause of a succeeding effect. When this
appears to be the case the explanation is that the energy was not
exhausted in producing the immediate simple effect, but has produced
a complicated effect in which a series may be discovered. An
objective effect, being a mere flash of consciousness--a shadow on a
window-blind--is incapable of causing anything.
_Analysis of Cause._ Cause is mind in action. It consists of at
least energy and a sentimental _motive_--energy exerted to gratify
sentiment. If the mind is intellectualised there will probably be
an ideal element in the cause--in this connection called _plan_
or _design_--for the better direction of the energy. Normal human
causation consists of an effort of mind directed towards the objective
realisation of a plan, for the gratification of a sentiment. This is
the same as WILL.
All three elements of cause may be furnished by the same
individual--or any two of them--or only one. For instance, the man who
wants a house supplies the motive, the architect provides the design,
the builder finds the energy.
One plan may use up an indefinite number of separate stores of energy.
Even in an individual the realisation of a plan exhausts the powers
of millions of organic cells. A military campaign illustrates the
relation of plan to power. The design may have been formed by one man,
and then communicated wholly or partially to a hundred thousand, and
the energies of these may be devoted to its realisation. The soldier
fights with his own energy, but he is directed by his commander's
idea, or so much of it as has been confided to him. The design may
stretch from the commander to the soldier, but not the energy. In
order that the commander should be termed the 'cause' of his private's
activity, it would be necessary to eliminate the notion of exerted
energy from causation, and reduce it to bare communication of design,
which would be absurd.
The stretching of one design over many relays of energy has no
doubt helped to confirm the notion that causation is a long chain of
alternate causes and effects. The truth is that energy can act only
at short range, and has to be incessantly renewed. The world is in a
constant state of creation and dissolution, say the Kabbalists. It is
absurd to speak of anything that existed a thousand or even a hundred
years ago as the _cause_ of anything existing to-day. The design may
intellectually survive, but the energy is long since dissipated. We
have never more than about a day's supply of energy in store at once.
If sentiment, power, and design are supplied by different individuals,
no single one of them can be called the cause of the effect. The
relation of each to the result is sequence. When we have traced
an effect to the mind or minds that supplied the three or the two
necessary elements--supposing the design is sometimes omitted and
the act what we call _instinctive_--we have obtained a complete
explanation of the effect. Our curiosity is then absolutely satisfied.
We have reached a true beginning.
It is the want of this thorough explanation that renders material
science so disappointing. We are put off with a mere physical
antecedent, which itself needs explanation as much as its consequent.
It does not make the antecedent more significant to place it far back
in time, for time by itself is not a cause--it is merely a name given
to intervals of experience. A thing is never truly explained until we
see that its production either caused pleasure to something else, or
was expected to cause pleasure. Behind everything must be Sentiment.
One generation of beings is not the cause of the following generation,
else the former would have perished in begetting the latter. More
particularly, a man is not the _effect_ of his parents or remoter
ancestors, though they stood to him in an antecedent relation. The
seed of his body was taken from theirs, but his energy is his
own, drawn direct from the universal source. If he resembles them
corporeally it is because he previously resembled them mentally,
not because the cells of his body have hereditary tendencies to
take particular forms. Hence the Darwinian genealogy of men and
animals--supposing it were correct--does not explain them. It is
a phenomenal schematism based on or implying an erroneous
assumption--that generation is causation.
Atomism--the theory of Democritus--is founded on another false view
of causation. The physical parts of a thing are conceived to be
the causes of the thing, and so the least conceivable particles of
'matter' are considered the first causes and true explanation of all
things. This notion appears to be useful in chemistry, but it cannot
be accepted as philosophy. If our senses were sharpened to perceive
atoms these would simply be small phenomena, and it would still be
necessary to inquire what motive and power produced them. It has been
suggested that atoms may be inherently sentient and dynamic: if
so they are minute animals or cells, and we are still without
an explanation of their occurrence in organised masses. It is
inconceivable that they should spontaneously enter into intricate
combinations, whose evident purpose has only an indirect and partial
bearing on their welfare.
Though advocated by men of undoubted ability, Atomism and Evolution
are nothing more than forms of the ordinary realistic belief, that
things are caused by their physical antecedents. The two theories are
supposed to be complementary, but in reality they are contradictory.
If an animal body is caused by its parents it cannot be caused by its
own atoms, and _vice versâ_.
_Varieties of Causation._ Abstract causation--the category--consists
of a cause and an effect. The former, as we have seen, is complicated,
the latter may comprise several objects. Ignoring the complications
involved in the use of an organism--which comes between the mind and
the final effect--we distinguish four or five varieties of causation.