THE CAUSE OF INFECTIOUS DISEASE. 235 



wise transmissions of a movement. Because 

 of the continuity of energy, therefore, every 

 form of liberated energy acts through the 

 transmission of movement in such a way as to 

 set free other forms of energy. In the pro- 

 cesses of disease external signs of this process 

 are afforded in the succession of changing 

 symptoms. The impulses that set free energy 

 are something external, and under certain 

 conditions may be altogether lacking ; it is at 

 least redundant to speak of liberating causes. 



We now know of course that small causes 

 produce not great, but only small effects, 

 whereas small impulses, when of sufficient 

 power to overcome resistances, may set free 

 great effects. The effect is always a process, 

 not an entity, and the causes which alone pro- 

 duce the effect are internal. External con- 

 ditions and external impulses are always links 

 of unequal value in an endless chain in which 

 a movement exists. Breaking the chain at any 

 one point makes the production of the effect 

 impossible. 



It is in itself a matter of complete indiffer- 

 ence what notation one adopts. I have myself 

 decided upon a definite and unambiguous ter- 

 minology and thus reached clear-cut and defi- 

 nite conceptions. Such a terminology is ap- 

 plicable in all realms of human science, and 



