CAUSATIOX. 



CAUSATION. 



M 



mitnt itutr for that exercise which U MwntUl to henlth. Where lalwur 

 b not regarded, as is always the cue when the owner of tin- < attle 

 attends upon them himself, the curry-comb and the bruah ore in 

 regular use, and the advantage U not denied. 



In those couiitriea where the fanner is allowed to distil a spirit from 

 his grain, it i a great advantage to an agricultural establishment to 

 hare a distillery attached to it, (-specially in a remote -n-i.iti.ni : ami 

 not only is the fattening of cattle on the refuse of tin- distillation a 

 source of profit, but the manure extend* fertility around. The pro- 

 duce in spirits and in cattle is easily transported to a great distance, 

 and almost the whole of what is produced by the land returns to it in 

 the shape of manure. The same mar be said of the manufactory of 

 sugar and spirit from l*et r.-ot, wliich has been lately so much 

 extended in the north of France. 



It can never be too much impressed upon the minds of agricul- 

 turist*, that without dung there is no corn ; without cattle there is no 

 dung. Every means should therefore be used to encourage the 

 breeding and feeding of cattle, and none can be more effectual than 

 to show that the profits of a farm are always proportioned to the 

 quantity of cattle kept, and the abundance of the food provided for 

 them. 



CAUSATION, CAUSE. The word earnc, in Latin, had more 

 nearly the sense of the Italian rant, thing, than that which it now has 

 in English. In the logic of the middle ages it was used in four senses, 

 and these senses show that catua was not one limited word, though 

 some sort of notion of producing runs through them all. There was 

 the material cause, the very substance of the thing produced, certainly 

 a tine qud NO* : the formal cause, the particular arrangement under 

 which the thing ia what it is, and not another variation of ti 

 matter : the efficient cause, the word cause in our English sense : and 

 the final cause, the end or object of the existence of the thing. We 

 still draw the distinction between efficient and final cause : but many 

 readers hardly understand this definition ; they may carry it with them 

 In one sentence : the existence of disease is the efficient cause of the 

 College of Physicians, the cure which is desired is the final cause. 



The subject of causation is one of the darkest in metaphysics. 

 Causation signifies etymologically the art inn of a cause in producing an 

 effect. " The theory of causation (' Essai sur la Psychologic,' Paris, 

 1826) necessarily supposes three indispensable conditions: 1st. Two 

 objects (agent and patient) ; 2ndly. Three changes (that of the agent ; 

 reason of the effect that of the patient; effect of the action tliat 

 which the patient produces on the agent ; effect of reaction) ; Srdly. 

 Four distinct moments (that which precedes the action that in which 

 the action begins that of the reaction and that after the reaction.) " 

 The subject of causation has always been one on which the most subtle 

 thinkers have exerted their powers of analysis ; but, as in every similar 

 research after final principles .which cannot by any effort of the under- 

 standing be clearly discerned and defined, opinions remain still as 

 conflicting as when the inquiry first began. The student, in wandering 

 through the mazes of metaphysical dogmatism, is disced to turn from 

 a subject on which so much has been said anil HO little dctet 

 he finds that the statements of writers consist either of that which 

 every one already knows, or of that which no one can at all understand. 

 It appears to be agreed that, though in every instance we actually 

 percrirc nothing more than that the event, change, or ph 

 always follows the event, change, fir phenomenon A, yet that we 

 naturally brlirrr in the existence of some unknown i/iuiliii/ 01 

 tinner belonging to the antecedent A, in virtue of which the consequent 

 B always has been, is, and will 1* produced. The fact of magnetic 

 attraction is usually adduced in illustration of causative influence ; and 

 the inquiry, ir/i.y does the magnet move the iron F suggests the idea of 

 that quality which is denoted by the w.< :lx>ut the nature of 



which metaphysicians have always disagreed, and their dispute remains 

 still unsettled. It is thin attributed effirimcy in the uniform antece- 

 dent of a change which philosopher** haw ooOl Mired as forming the 

 n of ratine ami rf"t; ami their endeavour to express the con- 

 ception of this hypothetic quality has occasioned the employ; 

 a great variety of terms, as energy, faculty, influent ability, 



virtue, force, possibility, fitness, aptitude, &c. The following citation.-* 

 and references may be serviceable to those who desire to examine tlie 

 learning of the subject. An account of the ancient division of causes 

 into efficient, material, final, and foim.il, with all the subtleties of the 

 Peripatetic school, is given in Lord Moiil.ixldo's ' Anuii-nt Metaphysics,' 

 4to. vol. i. pp. 33-3] 1 ; vol. ii. p. 212 ; ai;-' I specimen of the 



later scholastic doctrine and categorical arrangement of causes, see 

 ' Methodus cngnoncendi Caussas,' aiictnn Tlin,. ]. ,j,,. l-j m 

 " Coma et eflectui respondent polnttia et lie-tun iliac etcdcin n 

 (Hobbw, ' Opera PhiW c. ix., ' 1 >< Causa ct EBectu.') The following 

 discrimination U important : " Potentia ogentis ct causa efficient! (c. x. 

 ' DC Potcntia'), idem stint tv. diffrrunt autei.i ronsiderationc : 

 rnim dicitur respectu effectft* jam /wlnci!, /,,! niin vcro respectu 

 ejundem eflecttejirwfcuMltt; iU ut causa y.rrfm'wiii, potent ia/f urn i 

 rwpiciat" " All conception of future (/''., ' Hum. Nat.') is concep- 

 tion of potrtr able to produce something we so far conceive that any- 

 thing will be hereafter as we know that there is something at present 

 that bath power to produce it; and that anything hath power to 

 produce another thing hereafter, we cannot conceive but by remem- 

 brance that it hath produced the like heretofore j>owcr simply U the 



of the power of one (the agent) above that of aiioth. 

 patient)." " The idea of power (Locke, b. ii., c. 21, ' Of Power') i* that 

 of pouiliility, faculty, ability to make any change all power relates to 

 aftiim power is not the agent, but the relation (of an objeei 

 future action) how mind excites motion by the power of tl. 

 and how body communicates motion by the power of impulse, we aro 

 equally in the dark (c. xxiii.)- to liavr the idea of cause .. 

 suffice* to consider any thing as beginning to exist by the opera' 

 some other, without knowing the manner of that opcnitiou (c. xxvi, 

 ' Of Cause and Effect,' and see c. xxv. ' Of Relation ')." 



The far-famed and much disputed, though not original, opinl 

 Hume, which, with some slight modification, have been adopt 

 Dugald Stewart, Dr. Brown, and others, are contained in nee. I 

 7, 8, 11, of his ' Philos. Essays.' from which the following passages are 

 taken. Consistency is not to be looked for in eaaays professedly para- 

 ditrieal, and designed less for the development of truth than as ingenious 

 specimens of the dialectic art. " We mppote," says Hume, " there is a 

 connection between cause and effect; a/wii-erin the one by whi.-li it 

 infallibly prwliicet the other power is that circumntance in the cause 

 by which it is enabled to product the effect when we consider the 

 tiiubioiCTt circumstance of an object by which the degree or quantity of 

 its effect is fixed and determined we coll that its potter the effect is 

 the measure of the power the utmost scrutiny eon never discover but 

 one event following another, without being able to comprehend any 

 poicrr by which the cause operates no rational philosopher has ever 

 pretended to assign the ultimate ctuitc of any natural operation 

 show the action of that power which produce* any effect ; these ultimate 

 principles ore totally shut up from human inquiry the povxr of the 

 will in effecting animal motion is unknown and inconceivable ; we are 

 ignorant how bodies act on bodies, and how mind acts on itself and on 

 body; it is a thing entirely incomprehensible we have no idea of 

 power at all : it is a word absolutely without any meaning either in 

 philosophy or common life were our ignorance therefore a good reason 

 for rejecting any thing, we should deny all energy in the Supreme 

 Being as much as in matter ; experience only teaches us how one 

 event consequently follow another, without instructing us in the secret 

 connection which binds them together; we know nothing more of 

 causation of any kind than merely the constant conjunction of objects : , 

 all events seem entirely loose and separate ; one follows another, but 

 we never can observe any tie between them : all we know of tin- i 

 is, that a cause is that after not by which anything DO 

 it is an object foti owed by another, and where all the object* similar to 

 the first are followed by objects similar to the second, or where if l/i- 

 ,tii-fl had not been the tecond nerer had exitted it is absolutely imprac- 

 ticable to define a cause without comprehending as a part of the 

 definition a necemary connexion with its effect belief of similar 

 from similar causes is a natural instinct which reasoning IMM < 

 produce nor prevent." From observations so full of at least apj>arent 

 contradiction, it is not surprising that both the denial and admission of 

 the principle of causative power are imputed to their author I >y dif- 

 ferent writers. Many of the works written in refutation of Hume 

 contain ingenious remarks, though little of discovery. H.attie'Ou 

 Truth,' c. v.; Oswald; Priestley. By l)r. Reid, Hume's opinion of 

 potcer as having no objective reality beyond the imagination, is strongly 

 opposed. (' Intellectual Powers,' 1827, pp. 440 459.) " The notion 

 of power, it is said, is one of our earliest abstractions, a notion tin- 

 most explicit and universal, for the expression of which all languages 

 have distinct and appropriate words." The remarks of Dr. Price 

 ('Moral Questions,' p. 29) deserve attention : " What can do u 

 what is fitted to answer no purpose, has no . 



p<aeer can be nothing real meaning of 7 for a 



fact implies something in the nature of object - 



them, a filnrts to injlitencc one another." Trier, Heid, Newton, and 

 most writers on the subject, agree that where there in no substance 

 there is no power, that is, that all power is the power of something ; 

 but by Sir Win. Drummond (' Acadcm. Questions,' -Ho, p. 10) and some 

 others, it is i is not an n'lrilmtt . but an inde- 



pendent primary indemonstral . the cause of all tliin:-< : and 



that we can possess a notion of the cj-lttcnrr of it, as of the ri* n< 

 without any notion of its tmttire." The opinions of Dr. Stewart on 

 the subject arc not remarkable either for novelty or consi>' 

 C Klemcnts of I'll, . andii.) " In every change we Ii 



irrttiflilAf conviction of the operation of some ran*-- -it Is a law 

 nature; the mental association of cause and cnVi-t is of a nuni 

 soluble nature the idea of caiiff m pmrer necessarily ae. ompauics the 

 i change the human mind surely lias a natural ' 



e things as somehow linki-d (..;, ilni: i /.oirrrx and 



which ft them to produce particular effects : but that we have 

 no reason to believe thin, i e\ moment's reflection it is a 



prejudice.' 1 Along with this declaration is enforced the, 

 distinguishing physical from tin-il t .*,.' causes, that is from 



K and virtues" which are declared to have no exi. 

 "There may l>e," says Dr. Stewart, "no among 



any phenomena we observe ; the dm-tiine of necenil 

 the truth of the proposition that every change has a cauec with which 

 it i* necfttarily connected." But what is meant by necessary unless 

 that which cannot be varied or avoided ? And surely this may be 

 predicated of human actions, U the law* of matter and mind are imam- 



