CONTENT AND VALIDITY OF THE CAUSAL LAW 363 



of what critical analysis shows to be involved in the presupposition 

 of a uniform sequence. 



In all this we have already abandoned the field of mere perception 

 which gave us the point of departure for our analysis of uniform 

 sequence. We may call the changing course of perception only in the 

 narrower meaning the sensory presupposition of the causal relation. 

 In order that these changing contents of perception may be known 

 as like one another, as following one another, and as following one 

 another uniformly, they must be related to one another through a 

 recognitive reproduction. 



Our critical analysis of uniform sequence is, however, not yet 

 complete. To relate to one another the contents of two ideas always 

 requires a process at once of identifying and of differentiating, which 

 makes these contents members of the relation, and which accordingly 

 presupposes that our attention has been directed to each of the two 

 members as well as to the relation itself - - in the present case, to the 

 sequence. Here we come to another essential point. We should apply 

 the name "thought" to every ideational process in which attention 

 is directed to the elements of the mental content and which leads us 

 to identify with one another, or to differentiate from one another, the 

 members of this content. 1 The act of relating, which knows two 

 events as similar, as following one another, indeed, as following one 

 another uniformly, is therefore so far from being a sensation that it 

 must be claimed to be an act of thinking. The uniformity of sequence 

 of a and 6 is therefore an act of relating on the part of our thought, 

 so far as this becomes possible solely through the fact that we at one 

 and the same time identify with one another and differentiate from 

 one another a as cause and b as effect. We say " at one and the same 

 time," because the terms identifying and differentiating are corre- 

 latives which denote two different and opposing sides of one and the 

 same ideational process viewed logically. Accordingly, there is here 

 no need of emphasizing that the act of relating, which enables us to 

 think a as cause and 6 as effect, is an act of thought also, because it 

 presupposes on our part an act of naming which raises it to being 

 a component of our formulated and discursive thought. We therefore 

 think a as cause and 6 as effect in that we apprehend the former as 

 uniform antecedens and the latter as uniform consequens. 



Have we not the right, after the foregoing analysis, to interpret 

 the uniform sequence of events solely as the necessary presupposi- 

 tion of the causal relation? Is it not at the same time the adequate 

 presupposition? Yes, is it not the causal relation itself? As we 

 know, empiricism since Hume has answered the last question in the 



1 Cf. the author's "Umrisse zur Psychologie des Denkens," in Philosophische 

 Abhandlungen Chr. Sigwart . . . gewidmet, Tubingen, 1900. 



