CONCEPTS OF &quot;REASON&quot; AND &quot;CAUSE&quot; 91 



objects or events contributing to its production ; not the whole nature of the 

 objects or events under whose influence it occurs is relevant to its occurrence, 

 but only certain particular properties or modes of action ; and it is possible 

 to formulate severally the principles of action involved, from which the joint 

 result may be seen to follow, where it would not be possible to assign to the 

 phenomenon any group of concrete objects or events as cause, about which we 

 could say not only that, given them the phenomenon must be given, but also 

 that, given the phenomenon, they must have been given too &quot; *. . . 



&quot; For example, we may ask what is the cause of the monsoons that is, of 

 the regular and periodic winds that blow steadily in certain regions for one 

 part of the year and for another in the opposite direction ? If we said that 

 they were due to periodic alterations in the distribution of atmospheric pressure, 

 it would not be very instructive ; for we really want to know what events 

 happening in those regions, produce these differences. Yet the events which 

 contribute to determine the deviation and direction of the monsoons are 

 numerous and variable. . . .&quot; 2 And these numerous and variable events are 

 due to the variously combined influences and activities of sun and sea and 

 land and air and aqueous vapour among other things. Now, in such a 

 case as this, to seek for the reciprocating or indispensable &quot; cause &quot; of the 

 monsoon would be futile. &quot; To give the cause of monsoons, without deficiency 

 or superfluity, would mean that we must not mention the sun (because only the 

 heat of its rays is material), nor the sea (because only its fluidity and its power 

 of giving off vapour concern us, and a lake, if it was big enough, would do as 

 well), nor any other of the concrete things which act in the way required, but 

 only their requisite actions.&quot; 8 But no one would dream of giving the cause 

 of the monsoons without mentioning those various agencies ; and in giving 

 them &quot; we shall have to include in our statement of the cause elements at 

 least theoretically superfluous &quot;. Shall we, then, rest content with a bare 

 enumeration of these partly superfluous agencies ; simply stating, in explana 

 tion of the monsoons, that these are due to the combined influences of sun 

 and air and land and sea ? No ; something more than this is expected, even 

 though an exact statement of the &quot; commensurate cause &quot; is not expected. 

 There is a middle course, a third alternative, which is expected, and it is this : 

 that we &quot; look for the principles in accordance with which [these] objects [or 

 agencies] act under certain circumstances ; then we can show that the mon 

 soon is only the complex result of the action of a number of objects under the 

 particular circumstances of the case, and in accordance with the principles of 

 action which our laws express &quot; 4 . In other words, &quot; we alter the form of 

 our problem. Looking upon the phenomenon as the complex result of many 

 conditions, we attempt to determine not [merely] what assemblage of objects 

 or events will produce the result, nor [again, attempt to determine] on what 

 properties or events therein it depends [the reciprocating cause] ; but what 

 is the principle of action in \the~\ different objects or events, in virtue of 

 which some one particular condition necessary to the production of the 

 phenomenon is realized in them. For the reciprocating cause of a complex 

 phenomenon we substitute as the object of our search the principle in accord- 



1 JOSEPH, op. cit., pp. 445, 446 (italics ours). 3 ibid., p. 444. 



3 ibid., p. 445. 4 ibid, (italics ours). 



