290 The Origin of a 'Thing' and its Nature 



But the tendency to make all experience liable to this 

 kind of causation is an attempt to undo nature's conven- 

 tion — to accept one of her results, which exists only in 

 view of a certain differentiation of the aspects of reality, 

 and apply this universally, to the subversion of the very 

 differentiation on the basis of which it has arisen. The 

 fact that there is a class of experiences whose behaviour 

 issues in such a purely historical statement and arouses 

 in me such a purely habitual attitude, is itself witness to a 

 larger organization — that of the richer consciousness of 

 expectation, volition, prophecy. Otherwise conservation 

 could never have been given abstract statement in thought. 



The reason that the category of causation has assumed its 

 show of importance, is just that which intuitionist thinkers 

 urge ; and another historical example of confusion due to 

 their use of it may be used for illustration. Causation is 

 about as universal a thing — in its application to certain 

 aspects of reality — as could be desired. And we find 

 thinkers of this school using this fact to reach a certain 

 statement of theism. But they then find a category of 

 ' freedom ' claiming the dignity of an intuition also ; and 

 although this comes directly in conflict with the universality 

 ascribed to the other, nevertheless it also is used to support 

 the same theistic conclusion. The two arguments read: 

 (i) an intelligent God exists because the intelligence in the 

 world must have an adequate cause, and (2) an intelligent 

 God exists because the consciousness of freedom is sufficient 

 evidence of a self-active principle in the world, which is 

 not caused. All we have to say, in order to avoid the diffi- 

 culty, is that any mental fact is an * intuition ' in reference 

 only to its own content of experience. Intelligence viewed 

 as a natural fact, i.e., retrospectively, has a cause; but 



