THE AIM OF SCIENCE 45 



Science seeks to free itself from this anthropo- 

 morphism. 



It is part of the business of Science to account 

 for the occurrence of events, and it does so by 

 disclosing their "efficient causes." This simply 

 means that the event in question is shown to be 

 determined by preceding events; one particular 

 set of circumstances giving rise to another. 



Let us here seek the aid of a scientific phi- 

 losopher, Prof. A. E. Taylor. "The notion of 

 causation as a transaction between two things 

 is replaced in the experimental sciences by the 

 conception of it as merely the determination of an 

 event by antecedent events. Similarly, with the 

 disappearance of things as the vehicles of causal 

 processes falls the whole distinction between an 

 active and a passive factor. As it becomes more 

 and more apparent that the antecedent events 

 which condition an occurrence are a complex 

 plurality and include states of what is popularly 

 called the thing acted upon as well as processes 

 in the so-called agent, science substitutes for the 

 distinction between agent and patient the con- 

 cept of a system of reciprocally dependent inter- 

 acting factors. These two substitutions give us 

 the current scientific conception of a cause as the 

 * totality of the conditions' in the presence of 

 which an event occurs, and in the absence 

 of any member of which it does not occur. 



