24 



cause; not indispensable to the existence of the effect: and this 

 must of necessity be true, since a cause can operate only by sup- 

 plying its own self; and of course where it is not, there it can have 

 no influence. 



36. Now although this appears to be a true account of those 

 which are called remote causes, yet there are some difficulties in- 

 volved in it which require to be further explained ; no less for the 

 sake of consistency, than for the purpose of exhibiting more fully 

 the true extent of the relation. 



37. It is acknowledged that a cause always exists in the effect; 

 or if the effect can exist without it, the supposed cause is none, but 

 merely a connection. But an effect cannot exist without these 

 remote causes ; is it not therfore necessary, it may be asked, that 

 any single effect which we contemplate, should participate in the 

 causes, however remote, which led to it? Thus, for example, if a 

 steeple should fall in consequence of being struck by lightning, and 

 a justice of the peace (as a brief specification of an example), passing 

 by at the time, should be killed by a stone which fell upon his head, 

 would not the lightning be the cause of the death of the justice? 

 To pursue the objection, it may be said, stating the case more fully, 

 the lightning precipitated this stone from the steeple, which cause 

 was contained in the stone as long at least as it was actuated by it ; 

 still urged by the lightning, the stone fractured the justice's skull; 

 the fractured bone, driven by the force of the lightning contained in 

 the stone, lacerates the brain, in consequence of which its function 

 ceases, and the justice dies. The question is, whether the lightning, 

 by fair constitution, in the true way of causation, converts a living 

 principle into the condition of death 1 



38. As we find that death may arise from a somewhat similar 

 accident, where there is no lightning in the case; so we must con- 

 clude that the effect, namely, the condition of death, mav exist, and is 

 identified without lightning, and that therefore lightning does not 

 in this instance mix with the living principle, changing its identity 

 from the living to the dead state. By this coarse illustration 

 (chosen because the processes are obvious) we are furnished with a 

 general distinction explanatory of the laws by which remote agency 

 is governed: the distinction is this, the lightning is a cause only in 

 respect to concurrent agents with which it is so related, as to pro- 

 duce an effect conjointly with them. The extent of the causa- 

 tion of the lightning is dependent upon its relation; which 

 relation, as before explained, is settled by the presence of 

 causes: thus, allowing that the stone contained lightning at the 

 time that it fractured the justice's skull, yet the relation between 

 the agents might be, that the bone received properties only common 

 to an impulse of any kind, and had no relation with the lightning 

 by which it might be derived to itself from the stone; or, supposing 

 that the bone participated in the lightning, and thus furnished, 

 entered the brain ; yet the effect upon the vital principle would be 

 caused by other parts of the agency, and iu no degree by the 



