ON THE NOTION OF CAUSE 191 



cause may have been one of many alternatives, then we 

 may say that the cause determines the effect, but not the 

 effect the cause. Plurality of causes, however, results 

 only from conceiving the effect vaguely and narrowly 

 and the cause precisely and widely. Many antecedents 

 may " cause " a man's death, because his death is vague 

 and narrow. But if we adopt the opposite course, taking 

 as the " cause " the drinking of a dose of arsenic, and as 

 the " effect " the whole state of the world five minutes 

 later, we shall have plurality of effects instead of plurality 

 of causes. Thus the supposed lack of symmetry between 

 " cause " and " effect " is illusory. 



(4) " A cause cannot operate when it has ceased to 

 exist, because what has ceased to exist is nothing." This 

 is a common maxim, and a still more common unex- 

 pressed prejudice. It has, I fancy, a good deal to do 

 with the attractiveness of Bergson's " duree " : since the 

 past has effects now, it must still exist in some sense. 

 The mistake in this maxim consists in the supposition 

 that causes "operate" at all. A volition "operates" 

 when what it wills takes place ; but nothing can operate 

 except a volition. The belief that causes "operate" 

 results from assimilating them, consciously or uncon- 

 sciously, to volitions. We have already seen that, if 

 there are causes at all, they must be separated by a finite 

 interval of time from their effects, and thus cause their 

 effects after they have ceased to exist. 



It may be objected to the above definition of a volition 

 " operating " that it only operates when it " causes " 

 what it wills, not when it merely happens to be followed 

 by what it wills. This certainly represents the usual view 

 of what is meant by a volition "operating," but as it 

 involves the very view of causation which we are engaged 

 in combating, it is not open to us as a definition. We 



