(Web Editor's note: We are offering Francis Aveling's presentation of the philosophical concept of "cause"

not as the end of a discussion but as a beginning of a discussion.)

Cause

CAUSE IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY

The Pre-Socratics, Plato, Aristotle

THE SCHOLASTIC ANALYSIS OF CAUSATION

Material Cause, Formal Cause, Efficient Cause, Final Cause

CAUSATION IN MODERN THOUGHT

Bacon, Descartes, Hume, Reid, Kant

LATER SPECULATIONS

Hegel and Schopenhauer, Cause in Science, Common Sense,

Cause in Law

(Gr. aitía, aítion, Lat. causa, Fr. cause, Ger. Ursache; from the Latin both the

Italian term cosa and the French chose, meaning "thing", are derived),

Cause, as the correlative of effect, is understood as being that which in any way

gives existence to, or contributes towards the existence of, any thing; which

produces a result; to which the origin of any thing is to be ascribed. The term

cause is also employed in several other suppositions, philosophical, scientific,

legal, etc., to which reference will be made in the course of the present article.

The description just given is that of cause taken in the philosophical sense, as

well as in its ordinary signification in popular language, for, strictly speaking,

cause, being a transcendental, cannot receive a logical definition. It is that also

commonly advanced as a preliminary to the investigation of the nature of

causality, in the schools. Although the ideas of cause and of causality are quite

obviously among the most familiar that we possess, since they are involved in

every exercise of human reasoning, and are presupposed in every form of

argument and by every practical action, a very great vagueness attaches to the

popular concept of them and a correspondingly great ambiguity is to be found in

the use of the terms expressing them. In view of this fact, it will be necessary to

clear the ground traversed in the main portion of the present article by stating

that it is concerned, not so much in treating of individual causes considered in

the concrete, as with the analysis of the idea of causality underlying and involved

in that of every cause. There is also a psychological, as well as a metaphysical,

aspect of the subject, which ought not to be lost sight of, especially in that part

of the article in which the more recent speculations with regard to causality are

touched upon.

As a matter of fact, all mankind by nature attributes to certain phenomena a

causative action upon others. This natural attribution of the relationship of cause

and effect to phenomena is anterior to all philosophical statement and analysis.

Objects of sense are grouped roughly into two classes--those that act and those

that are acted upon. No necessarily conscious reflection seems to enter into the

judgment that partitions natural things into causes and effects. But when we

proceed to ask ourselves precisely what we mean when we say, for example,

that A is cause and B effect, that A causes B, or that B is the result of A, we

raise the question of causality. Whatever answer we put forward, it will be the

statement of our conception of causation. It will be the expression of our

judgment as to the actual relationship between A and B involved in the

conception of the one as cause and of the other as effect. It will probably be

found, when we attempt to formulate any answer to the question, that much more

is involved than we had at first sight thought; and, since the investigation we

should pursue would probably proceed upon lines analogous to those upon which

philosophy has, as a matter of fact, travelled, it will not be amiss to trace the

history and development of the problem concerned with causes and causality,

and to set down briefly the various solutions advanced. We shall begin, therefore,

with the first crude conception of power or efficiency, and pass on through the

stages of hyloism and idealism to the full analysis of cause and statement of

causality made by Aristotle. This will be considered merely in outline, as filled in

in the following more detailed account of the doctrines of the Schoolmen upon

the subject, who, while adopting it in all its main lines, in several respects

modified the teaching of the Stagirite. The critical attack upon the possibility of a

knowledge of causality, made by the Scottish sceptic Hume, will next be

considered in its relation to the reply of the Common Sense School, as

represented by Reid. The doctrine of Kant, with its double sequence of idealism

and materialism, will be touched upon briefly; and, with a comparison of the

mechanical concept of modern science with regard to causes and the more

fundamental metaphysical analysis of causality, the philosophical treatment of

the topic will be brought to an end.

CAUSE IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY

The Pre-Socratics

Before the inception of the pre-Socratic schools of Greek philosophy, the first

rude and popular conception of causes was mixed up with much that was

extravagant and, in the proper sense of the word, superstitious. The powers of

nature were personified, and thought of as intelligent and wilful. They were

conceived of as far more powerful than man, but uncertain and capricious, so that

it was necessary to propitiate them and enlist their favour by offering them

sacrifices and praying to them. Thus there was the idea of power, and a loose

attribution of effects to one or another of the natural forces that had vaguely come

to be looked upon as causes. It was in order to provide a ground of unity, rather

than thus to distract causes, that the early philosophers took up their search for

the principles of things. The problem immediately before them was that of

explaining similarity and diversity, as well as change, in the visible world. With

them, though the term aitía was employed, and even occasionally in several of

the senses in which Aristotle later distinguished it, the commoner term was

arché, with which the former was apparently generally interchangeable. By this

term a principle was designated that, in some vague sense, approaches in

meaning to the material cause of the Stagirite. It was used to signify an entity

prior to existing entities, and yet in some way coexisting with them and

furnishing the ground or reason for their existence. But it did not connote the idea

of cause in the strict sense, namely as that which actually gives being to its

effect, such as is involved in later concepts of causality and is derived from the

observation and analysis of the conditions of physical change. The problem

thence arising had not yet been definitely set. The task of the philosophers of

these early schools was the investigation of nature, with, for result, the discovery

of its elemental constituent or constituents, its primordial principles. Thus the

representatives of both the Ionian and Eleatic Schools, in reducing all things to a

single purely material basis, or to several bases, assign, indeed, a principle that

may be considered as a concrete cause, but do not raise the real question of

causality, or give any satisfactory account either as to how one thing differs from

another or as to how things can come to be at all. Nor, in explaining diversity and

change by assigning heat, rarefaction, condensation, arrangement in space,

number, etc., was more than an attempt made to call closer attention to the fact

of causation and to determine more accurately than did popular opinion what

were the concrete causes by which things came to be what they are. This,

obviously, is not an analysis of causality, and in no sense really touches the

heart of the question. It hardly calls for the remark that at most the causes, or

more properly the principles, assigned, even if understood in the sense of

inherent differentiating principles, were such as would account for no more than

an accidental diversity, leaving all things, the diversity of which was the very point

to be explained, really identical in substance.

Plato

The progress from this first search for the elemental principles of being to the

later investigation and interpretation of alteration, or change, in itself was gradual.

Something had to be found that would account for the regularity of the

succession of phenomena in the physical world, as well as for their diversity and

alteration. The Pythagoreans put forward their doctrines of number as an

explanation; Plato, his theory of ideas. Thus, in his advance upon his

predecessors, he clearly allows, in a very real sense, for formal causes of

existence. But he does not specify the nature of these ideas, other than as

substances, separate from the individual entities that they cause. In some

manner not fully explained, these individual entities are precisely what they are

by participating in the idea. In different passages in his writings Plato alludes to

the relation between the ideas and the concrete entities as a participation, a

community, or an imitation. Thus he states the fact of similarity in the essences

and processes of the physical world, but does not offer any explanation or

definite account of it. In common with the earlier nature philosophers, Plato

assigns concrete causes but does not attempt to give any solution of the real

problems of causality. Not until Aristotle formulated his famous doctrine of the

four causes of being can it be said that the question was envisaged with

sufficient clearness to admit of exact presentation or fruitful discussion. Instead

of explaining diversity in the physical world by a reference to a common

underlying principle and an accidental modification, either fortuitous or designed,

proceeding from it and in it--at best the crude makeshift of an incipient

philosophy that has yet to state correctly the problem to be solved, instead of

looking outside the object, or effect, for that which specifies it, and finding a

substance entirely separated from it, to which its substantial existence in the

world of phenomena, in some cryptic manner, is to be attributed, Aristotle

instituted a profound inquiry into the essentially diverse modes in which any one

thing can be said to contribute to the existence of any other. In so doing he

changed the nature of the inquiry. The result was not only the discovery of the

four causes, but a solution of the really far more important question of causality.

There is no doubt but that his teaching is, in a very real sense, a synthesis of all

that had gone before it; but it is a synthesis in which no one of the preceding

doctrines is adopted precisely as it stood in the earlier systems. The secret

which governed the adaptation of the currently accepted "principles" and made

the synthesis possible, lay in the signification that he gave to the formal cause.

The task he had to perform had ceased to be that of discovering merely physical

constituents or principles, and had shifted to the fundamental issue of

metaphysical inquiry. Aristotle gives the opinions of his predecessors at

considerable length in the "Physics", and again in the "Metaphysics", in which

he submits them to a careful analysis and rigorous criticism. But the elements of

his own doctrine with regard to the four causes, as causes, were there in

solution. The signification of the term arché, already used, was sufficiently

comprehensive to include that of aitía, since all causes come necessarily under

the head of principles. The Ionians of the older school had dealt with matter.

Later Ionians had treated vaguely of efficient causes. The method and moral

teaching of Socrates had convolved and brought out the idea of the final, while

Plato had definitely taught the existence of separated formal, causes. All these

factors contributed to the result of his inquiry, and the splendid historical

criticism and review to which he submits the earlier philosophers and their

teachings on this point show not only his wide and profound acquaintance with

their doctrines, but his readiness also to credit them with whatever they had

advanced that at all made for knowledge. Still, to this point, as has been said, it

was a question of principle rather than of cause; and, when of cause as such, of

cause considered in the concrete rather than of the causality of causes.

Aristotle

The problem, then, for Aristotle, took the form of an analysis of essences in such

wise as to perceive, separate, and classify those principles which, in conspiring

to bring the essence of any effect, object or event, actually into existence, as it

were, flow into it. For the idea of cause is of that which in any way influences the

production of an effect as an essence. And, to declare the manner in which such

causes, once discovered, are found to correspond, and play their several parts in

causation, will be to state causality. Now, as our notion of principles in general,

whether in the being, in the becoming, or in the understanding of any thing, is

primarily derived from observation of motions taking place in space, so our notion

of cause is derived from observation of changes, whether local, quantitative,

qualitative, or substantial. The explanation of any change leads to the doctrine of

the four distinctions, or classes, of causes as formulated by Aristotle. They were:

matter, húle--tò hex oû gínetaí tí enupárchontos

form, morphé, eîdos--ho lógos ho toú ti ên eînai--

moving, or efficient cause, tò kinetikó--hóthen he archè tês metabolés he

próte--

final cause, tò télos--tò hoû héneka (Cf. Physics, II, iii.)

These are severally related in various ways. It is in the declaration of this

relationship that the notion and explanation of causality is to be found. The

material cause, that out of which the principiate, or effect, is made or caused, is

conceived as an indeterminate potentiality. It is determined to a definite

substantial essence by the formal cause. This, in turn, is conceived as an

actuality specifying the material potentiality. Formal causes are the changeless

essences of things in themselves, permanent in them amid the flux of accidental

modifications, yet by actual union with the material cause determining this to the

concrete individual; and not, like the ideas of Plato, separated from it. They are,

under the action of the moving, or efficient, cause, the accomplishment of the

determinability of matter. The moving, or efficient, cause, which, as will be seen

later, is that which has come to be chiefly regarded as the true cause, and that

round which most controversy has arisen, is, in this fourfold division of causes,

that one by the operation or agency of which the effect is brought into being; i.e.

by the operation of which the formal cause of the effect is induced in the material.

Lastly, the final cause is that principle on account of which the efficient cause

moves towards the production of its effect. It is the effect itself formally

considered as the term of the intention of the agent, or efficient cause. Neither

Aristotle nor Plato is very clear as to the precise sense in which the final cause

is to be understood. The Aristotelean phrase is loose enough to cover the two

meanings: i.e., the end considered as the object desired, and the end considered

as the desire of the object. Aristotle perceives and teaches that the end is

frequently identified with the form, and that this is also frequently identified in

species with the moving cause; for man, as he says in the example that he

gives, begets man. It does not, however, follow that all moving causes are always

identified, even in species, with their effects. Indeed, Aristotle teaches that this is

not the case. He holds that the world is eternal; but, in virtue of his fundamental

principle that no potentiality can precede actuality, he makes it a participative

eternity. Hence the material and the formal causes that together go to make up

the world are created, or more properly, eternally concreated. From this

fundamental principle of the priority of actuality over potentiality, Aristotle proves

also the fact of the existence of God as the first moving cause. As each effect of

a process is now to be reckoned an actuality that was before no more than

potential, and postulates a moving cause in order that it should have come into

being as the term of a motion, so all things in the world, taken together,

necessitate an absolutely first cause of the same nature. This first moving cause

must, on Aristotle's principle, be an absolute actuality, since, were it not entirely

in act, it could not be the moving cause of all things nor keep them eternally in

motion. Similarly, it must be pure form, or noûs, with no admixture of matter,

since this would import a limitation of its actuality. Thus did Aristotle raise and

answer the question of causality, dividing causes into four classes, and

indicating the nature of the causal influx with which each contributes towards the

production of their common effect. For, according to this theory, all the four

causes, taken together, are really the cause of any given physical effect.

THE SCHOLASTIC ANALYSIS OF CAUSATION

The teaching of Aristotle is that which substantially passed current in the

medieval schools. With certain important modifications concerning the eternity of

the material cause, the substantiality of certain formal causes of material

entities, and the determination of the final cause, the fourfold division was handed

on to the Christian teachers of patristic and scholastic times. As Aristotle had

developed and improved the doctrine of Plato with regard to inherent substantial

forms, so the leaders of Christian thought, guided in their work by the light of

revelation and the teaching of the Church, perfected the philosophical teaching of

Aristotle. It is not, indeed, advanced that the Christian philosophy of this period

was merely theological; but it is contended that certain purely philosophical

truths, verifiable in and by philosophy, were obtained as a result of the impetus

given to metaphysical research by the dogmas of revelation. This is not the place

for enlarging upon such a topic except in so far as it is directly pertinent to the

question of causes; and it is principally in other matters that the contention

obtains. Still, at least in the three cases to which allusion has just been made, it

is true that speculation was helped forward on the right lines by the teaching of

the Church. The truth of the contention is patent. In the patristic Period,

particularly in the works of St. Augustine, who was a Platonist rather than an

Aristotelean, and in the scholastic period, the foremost representative of which is

St. Thomas Aquinas, the doctrine of the four causes of being is set forth in

connection with the modifications noted. The theory of causality, as held and

taught in the Middle Ages, and as taught in the schools today, will in this section

be exhibited in some detail.

"The ancient philosophers came to the knowledge of truth by degrees and

slowly", writes St. Thomas.

For at first, being as it were less cultivated, they did not recognize

any beings other than sensible bodies. And those of them who

acknowledged movement in them only admitted movement as to

accidents, as in rarity and density, aggregation and disgregation.

And, supposing that the substance of bodies was untreated, they

assigned certain causes for accidental changes of this kind, as, for

example, friendship, strife, intellect or something of this nature.

Proceeding, they distinguished intellectually between the

substantial form and the matter, which they considered as

uncreated; and they perceived that substantial transmutation takes

place in bodies with respect to their substantial forms. (Summa

Theologica I:44:2)

The last sentence of this passage gives the basis of the Scholastic doctrine with

regard to causes. "Consider", a Scholastic would say, "a substantial

change--that is to say, a change in which one substance, made known to the

understanding by its qualities, ceases to be what it was in the instant A, and

becomes, in the instant B, another substance. In order that such a change

should be possible, four things are necessary: namely,

1.the thing that is changed;

2.the term, or manner of being, or essence, that is induced in that which is

changed;

3.the active agent that produces the change, or accomplishes the existence

of the new term, manner of being, or essence; and

4.the motive, or reason why this latter acts.

There is also, though it cannot be reckoned as a cause, the terminus a quo, or

the original determinative of the thing changed, which passes out of being with

the advent of the newly induced term. These four necessary things, since they

produce the final result by a mutual action and interaction, in which they give

being to it considered as result, are its causes. They are to be discovered,

moreover, wherever and whenever any change takes place, not only in

substantial, but also in accidental, changes, or mere changes of qualities."

Consider the two cases, the one of accidental, the other of substantial, change.

A cube of wax is moulded by the hand into a sphere. The wax, as permanent

substratum of the change of figure, is considered to be the matter, or material

cause. The spherical figure supervening upon that of the cubical, is the induced

formal cause. The moulder, or fashioner of the sphere, is the efficient cause. The

final cause is to be sought for in the intention of the moulder. The substance of

the wax remains throughout the entire process of the moulding. It is affected only

accidentally by the operation. Consequently the example is one of accidental

change, and gives us no more than an accidental formal cause. But in cases of

substantial change, such as, for example, the electrolysis of water, the induced

formal cause is a substantial one; and, moreover, since the substance of the

water does not remain after the change has taken place, the material cause

cannot be other than a subject, or permanent substratum, that is neither water

nor oxygen and hydrogen taken together. In such a case, it is called primordial,

or first matter, and is conceived as being a subject potential to information by

any and all formal causes. It is a potentiality, but, as a permanent substratum, or

determinable entity, is capable of receiving new substantial determinations in the

place of that which actually denominates it. It cannot exist alone, but exists only

as informed, or actuated by a formal cause. It is not eternal, but created, or,

more properly, concreated with substantial form.

Material Cause

The material cause, as presented in the Scholastic system of philosophy, fulfils

the conditions of a cause as given above. It gives being to the effect, since

without it this could neither exist nor come into being. Though it is conceived as

an essentially incomplete subject, as a merely passive potentiality, it is

distinguished from the complete effect, to the becoming and being of which it

contributes. The diversity of primordial matter from the forms which actuate it is

exhibited by the consideration that there is an essential distinction between the

subject of change and the states, modifications, or determined natures from

which and towards which the change is conceived as acting. Hence primordial

matter is reasonably held to be a reality, belonging reductively to the category of

substance, and determinable to every kind of corporeal substance by reason of

its essential ordination to the reception of a form. Quantity is said to be a

consequent of material substances by reason of the matter entering into their

physical composition; and by matter, as quantified, forms, specifically the same,

are held to be numerically individuated.

Formal Cause

The doctrine of the school with regard to formal causes must be understood in

the light of the thesis that all forms are, of their nature, acts, or actualities. The

formal cause of material entities has been described as that substantial reality

which intrinsically determines matter in any species of corporeal substance. It is

conceived as the actuating, determining, specifying principle, existent in the

effect. It is a substance, not of itself as form, but reductively, as the quidditative

act, as the material cause belongs to the same category in the sense of being a

receptive potentiality. But substantial form, with which we are here dealing, is not

of its nature either dependent or independent of the matter that it informs; or

actuates. Certain substantial forms are said to be drawn from the potentiality of

matter--those, namely, that for the exercise of all their functions are totally

dependent upon material dispositions or organs. Of this nature are said to be all

substantial forms, or formal causes, specifically below that of the human being,

i.e. the soul of man. This, as intrinsically independent of matter in its chief

functions of intellection and volition, is, although the formal cause of man, as

such, held to be immaterial, and to necessitate a special and individual creative

act on the part of God. While the material cause of corporeal entities is one, in

the sense that it is one indeterminate potentiality, the formal cause is said to be

one in the sense that one substantial formal cause only can exist in each effect,

or result, of the union of form and matter. For formal causes, as the specifying

factors in diverse corporeal entities, are diverse both numerically and specifically.

They are so specifically in that they proceed in an order of varying perfection,

from the formal causes of the simple elements upwards, just as the various

effects, or results, of the union of matter and form, which are specified by them,

proceed in an order of varying perfection, to the lower of which, in each

subsequent grade, a higher is super-added. They are numerically diverse, in the

same species, because of the differentiation that accrues to them on account of

their reception in quantified matter (materia signata).

Consistent with this teaching is that in which the angels are said to be

distinguished specifically, and not numerically, as lacking the material subject by

which substantial forms of the same species are differentiated. In the same way

the human soul, when separated from the body at death, is held to retain its

"habit" towards the quantified matter that it actuated as formal principle, and from

which it received its differentiation from all other human souls. In a sense similar

to that of substantial forms specifying primordial matter, accidental formal

causes are conceived as informing corporeal substances already in existence as

entities. The causality of the substantial formal cause is shown in the same

manner as that of the material. It concurs in the being of the effect, or result of

the union of matter and form, as actually constituting this in its proper and

specific essence. Yet it is distinct from it in that it does not include in itself

matter, which the composite effect does. A parallel consideration will show the

nature of the causality of accidental formal causes. The specific qualities of

material substances, as well as of immaterial, are said to depend upon their

formal causes. It may be noted that, while both the material and the formal

principle are, properly speaking, causes, in that they contribute, each in its

proper manner, towards the resultant effect, their causal nature is intrinsic. The

informed matter is the effect, produced and sustained by the act of information.

Form and matter are physically component parts of the effect. The theory derived

from an examination of corporeal changes, both accidental and substantial, that

has just been outlined, is that commonly known as Hylomorphism. It permeates

the whole of Scholastic physical science and philosophy and is employed, both

as to terminology and signification, in the exposition of Catholic theology. In this

place it will be well to note that the terminology and meaning of this doctrine are

not only consecrated to theology by the usage of theologians, but have also been

employed in the solemn definitions of the Church. In the general Council of

Vienne it was defined that whosoever shall presume to assert, defend, or

pertinaciously hold that the rational or intellective soul is not the form of the

human body, of itself and essentially, is to be considered as a heretic. (Cf.

"Conc. Viennen. Definitiones...ex Clementinâ de Summâ Trinitate" in Denzinger,

"Enchirid.", n. 408.) This teaching was reasserted in the decree of Pope Leo X, in

the Fifth Lateran Council (Bull, Apostolici Regiminis), and again by Pope Pius IX,

in a Brief to the Cardinal Archbishop of Cologne, concerning the books and

teaching of Günther (1857).

Efficient Cause

The efficient cause is that which, by its action, produces an effect substantially

distinct from itself. It is denominated efficient on account of the term produced by

its action, i.e. the effect itself, and not necessarily from any presupposed

material principle which it is conceived as potent to transform. The action, or

causality, of the efficient cause is conceived as one which educes the actuality

of the effect from its potentiality. This it is held to do in virtue of its own actuality,

though precisely how no one has ever explained. No explanation of the essential

nature of the action of the efficient cause would seem to be possible. St. Thomas

Aquinas tells us that

an effect shows the power of the cause only by reason of the

action, which proceeds from the power and is terminated in the

effect. But the nature of a cause is not known through its effect

except in so far as through its effect its power is known, which

follows upon its nature. (Contra Gentiles, III, lxix, tr. Rickaby.)

Both the fact of efficient causality, and an account of its mode of action, as to

accidents, are thus expressed by St. Thomas, in answer to the objections of

"some Doctors of the Moorish Law":

Now this is a ridiculous proof to assign of a body not acting, to

point to the fact that no accident passes from subject to subject.

When it is said that one body heats another, it is not meant that

numerically the same heat, which is in the heating body, passes to

the body heated; but that by virtue of the heat, which is in the

heating body, numerically another heat comes to be in the heated

body actually, which was in it before potentially. For a natural

agent does not transfer its own form to another subject, but

reduces the subject upon which it acts from potentiality to

actuality. (Op. cit., Bk. III, lxix.)

The same argument, mutatis mutandis, would likewise hold good if applied to the

efficient causes of substances. The efficient cause, unlike the material and the

formal, is thus seen to be entirely extrinsic to its effect. It is held to act in virtue

of its form. The fact and mode of this action is given in the above quotation from

the "Contra Gentiles"; but the precise nature of the action, or relation, between

the efficient cause and its effect is not stated. It is quite clear that the accident,

quality, power, or motion in the cause A is not held to pass over into the effect B,

since a numerically new one is said to be reduced from potentiality. Equally clear

is it that nothing of the first efficient cause is supposed to pass over into its

effects, as creation is said to be ex nihilo sui et subiecti; and there is nothing in

God to pass over, since all that we conceive of as in God is God Himself.

Consequently it would seem that the concept of efficiency in general includes no

more than the activity of the cause as producing the effect by educing an

accidental or a substantial form from the potentiality of matter. In the one case of

forms not so educible, the efficient cause (God) creates and infuses them into

matter. (Cf. In III Phys., Lect. 5.)

There are many divisions and subdivisions of the efficient cause commonly made

in Scholastic treatises, to which the reader is referred for a more complete

development of the subject. Under this head, however, will be added the principal

dignities, or axioms of causality, as laid down by the Schoolmen:

1.Whatever exists in nature is either a cause or an effect (Contra Gent., III,

cvii).

2.No entity can be its own cause (op. cit., II, xxi).

3.There is no effect without a cause.

4.Given the cause, the effect follows; the cause removed, the effect ceases.

This axiom is to be understood of causes efficient in act, and of effects

related to them not only in becoming but also in being (op. cit., II, xxxv).

5.An effect requires a proportionate cause. This axiom is to be understood

in the sense that actual effects respond to actual causes, particular

effects to particular causes, etc. (op. cit., II, xxi).

6.The cause is by nature prior to its effect. Priority is not necessarily

understood here as relating to time. (Op. cit., II, xxi; Summa theol.

III:62:6; "De potentiâ", Q. iii, a. xiii; "De veritate", Q. xxviii, a. vii.)

7.The perfection of the effect pre-exists in its cause (formally, virtually, or

eminently). (Cf. Summa theol. I:6:2.)

8.Whatever is the cause of a cause (precisely as cause) is the cause also

of its effect. This axiom enunciates a truth with regard to series of

connected causes formally acting by their nature. (Cf. Summa Theol.

I:45:5.)

9.The first cause (in any order of causes dependent one on the other)

contributes more to the production of the effect than the secondary cause.

(Cf. De causis, in cap.) Arguments, besides that given above, for the

establishing of the fact of efficient causality in the physical world are to be

found in the "Contra Gentiles", III, lxix.

It may be pointed out, in anticipation of the conception of purely mechanical, or

dynamical, causation to be referred to later on, that in this system causation is

not merely taken to mean an impulse, or change, in motion. The theory advanced

is one to account for change of any kind, and, by a profound analysis, to reach

the causes upon which things depend for their becoming and their actual beings.

Final Cause

The final cause, or end, is that for the sake of which the effect, or result of an

action, is produced. It is distinguished in the following manner: I (1) The end

considered objectively, or the effect itself as desired by the agent; (2) the end

formally considered, or the possession or use of the effect. II (1) The end of the

efficient operation, or that effect or result to which the operation is directed by the

efficient cause; (2) the end of the agent, or that which he principally and

ultimately intends by his operation. III (1) The end prior to the activity caused by

it, both as cause and in the line of being; (2) the end prior to the activity as

cause, but posterior to this in the line of being. There are other divisions of the

final cause, for the details of which the reader is referred to the literature upon the

subject. The causality of the final cause is to be referred to its appetibility. "As

the influx of the efficient cause is in its act, so the influx of the final cause is in

its being sought after and desired" (St. Thomas, De veritate, Q. xxii, a. ii.) That it

is a true cause Aquinas shows in the following words:

Matter does not acquire form, except according as it is moved by

an acting cause (agent); for nothing reduces itself from potency to

act. But the acting cause does not move, except by reason of the

intention of an end. For if the acting cause were not determined to

some effect, it would not act to produce one rather than another. In

order, therefore, that it should produce a determined effect, it is

necessary that it should he determined to something certain as

end. (Summa theol. I-II:1:2; cf. also In V Metaphysic., Lect. 2.)

The final cause, like the efficient, is extrinsic to the effect, the latter being the

cause of the existence of the former, and the former causing the latter, not in its

existence, but as to its activity here and now exercised. Efficient causes acting

towards ends are distinguished as: (1) acting by intelligence; or (2) acting by

nature. Ultimately, the tendency of the operation of the latter class is resolved

into operation by intelligence, since the determined operation following on their

nature is, and must be, assigned to an intelligent first cause, either of a particular

series, or of all series: i.e. God. Thus deliberative operation is seen not to be of

the essence of operation towards the attainment of ends. It is shown that, in no

one of the four classes into which causes are differentiated is an infinite

progression possible; and, upon the doctrine advanced as to causality in general,

and the four classes of causes in particular, are based arguments demonstrating

rationally the existence of God. It may be of interest to refer in this section to the

exemplary cause, or exemplary ideas, as conceived by St. Thomas. He writes

(Summa theol. I:15:1):

In all those things that are not generated by chance, it is

necessary that form should be the end of the generation of each.

But the efficient cause [agens] does not act on account of the

form, except in so far as the likeness of the form is in it. And this

happens in two ways. (1) For in certain efficient causes the form of

the thing to be made pre-exists, agreeably to natural essence, as

in those things that act by nature; as man begets man, and fire

produces fire. (2) But in others it pre-exists agreeably to intelligible

essence; as in those things which act by intellect; as the likeness

of the house pre-exists in the mind of the builder.

He concludes that, since the world is not the result of chance, there is an idea

(in the succeeding article of the same question, many ideas) in the Divine mind,

as the archetype forms of things. But these ideas are the essence of God

understood by Him as imitable in diverse modes on the part of His creatures. In

this sense, perhaps, did Aristotle identify form, end, and moving cause. In the

imitability on the part of creation, St. Thomas finds the secret of the world of

phenomena. Viewed with his theory of causality as exposed above, it is perhaps

the most complete and consistent explanation that has ever been given of the

problem. When we find Spinoza putting forward substance, with its two attributes

of thought and extension, determined to modes (unreal as these ultimately turn

out to be); when Berkeley teaches that what we take to be causal changes in the

phenomenal world are illusory, that there are no secondary causes, and that God

and the human mind alone are real; when Hegel posits the unfolding of thought

as the cause of phenomenal change, or Schopenhauer will manifesting itself in

phenomenal succession--we seem to have found some clue to the labyrinth of

causality, some common ground of unification. But it is at the cost of doing

violence to our sense perception and immediate necessary judgments that the

unification is brought about. In the Scholastic solution of the problem a ground of

unification is provided in the transcendence, rather than the immanence, of the

first and original source of all efficient causality. Moreover, with the isolation of

the four causes and the declaration of their relationships and interaction, a

coherent account is given of the working of secondary causality, as a matter of

fact, in the phenomenal world.

There is one aspect of the present topic that usually has a treatment apart from

the more general question of causality. How, it is asked, can causal action be

conceived as taking place between soul and body--between mind and matter, or

between matter and mind? For a fuller statement of the answer to the latter part

of this question the reader must be referred to the article EPISTEMOLOGY. It

may be pointed out here, however, that in the Scholastic philosophy, man is not

regarded as being a double entity--i.e. body+soul--but as a single one. The soul

is the true and proper form of the body, which is its matter. It is, consequently,

man who sees, hears, feels, etc., just as it is man who understands and wills.

The communication from the outside world to his consciousness is made by the

action of phenomena upon his organs of sensation. He is in touch with things

external to himself through the medium of their "sensible species". These, as

phantasmata, under the abstraction of the "acting intellect", are transformed into

"intelligible species". Thus, from the observation of causal action in the concrete,

man rises to a true intellectual knowledge of causality in itself.

The first part of the question includes two issues. Man wills and performs

actions, either becoming the efficient cause of effects, or causing efficient

causes to act. God wills and creates the world. In the second case philosophy

must confess to a mystery. It is held to be proved, by a consideration of the

multiplicity and mutability of the entities that together form the world, that they

have their origin in that one supreme and immutable entity which is God. It is

further held to be proved that they are neither produced out of Him nor out of an

already existing subject. To such a production of effects is given the name

Creation. How God, as efficient cause of creation, acts, it is impossible to

conceive. In the first case, will is a faculty of the soul, which is the substantial

form of man. Consequently a man wills, rather than the will (or the soul), and, by

reason of the intimate union of body and soul as matter and form (i.e. one

suppositum, thing, or person), man acts. As informed by "soul" man is capable

of willing to act and of acting; as body, or matter informed by "soul", he is

capable of acting upon other bodies. For a more complete development of this

point see PSYCHOLOGY.

CAUSATION IN MODERN THOUGHT

Though the Scholastic philosophy never fell into complete desuetude, nor ever

lacked distinguished exponents of its principles, the upheaval of the sixteenth

century was productive of new systems of thought in the development of which

the idea of causality was profoundly modified, and ultimately was, in any

intelligible sense, to a great extent abandoned. In this period two main lines of

thought with regard to causes and causal action are pursued. On the one hand

there is a tendency to revert to a purely mechanical conception, on the other to a

purely idealistic one. The later Schoolmen had, by indulging largely in

stereotyped, and often useless, speculations, in which a perplexing number of

concrete cases of causality figure, brought Scholasticism into disrepute; while a

general vague unrest and a desire for practical results from philosophy

contributed to the formation of a new empirical system, constructed upon the

principles of what is called the scientific method.

Bacon

In his "Instauratio magna", Bacon gave impetus to the movement. While

accepting the traditional fourfold division of causes, he was of opinion that any

speculation with regard to final causes is fruitless. The material cause, also, is

not a proper subject for investigation. Even the efficient cause, except in given

conditions, is such as cannot lead us to knowledge. Forms alone help the

interpreter of nature and this in the practical sense that by a knowledge of forms

he is in a position to become an efficient minister of nature. What is meant by

form is not very clearly explained; but it is fairly safe to say that by it Bacon

intended something approximating in meaning to the eîdos of Aristotle. Both

Bacon, as is to be seen in his treatment of heat in the "Novum Organum", and

Descartes make motion the cause of the "apparently diverse changes in nature".

The latter entirely rejected the Scholastic system of formal causes, and

considered matter as entirely inert. Hence diversify and change are to be

accounted for immediately by motion+matter; while ultimately the sole efficient

cause of all things is nothing else than the Will of God.

Descartes

The opinion of Descartes on this head, together with his complete dualism of

body and mind, led to the theory of causality, already advanced by certain Arabs

in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and known as Occasionalism. This is one

of the most curious causal theories that has ever been put forward, and merits

some notice. The Occasionalists--Malebranche, Geulinex (Leibniz)--taught that

created things do not themselves possess any effective activity, but are merely

occasions in which the activity of the sole efficient cause, God, is manifested. A

cause in nature does not produce any effect; but is the condition--or, more

properly, the occasion--of the production of effects. Similarly, there is no causal

connection or relation between body and soul. When God acts in nature

producing effects, or things, occasioned by the previous existence of other

things, He acts directly likewise upon our minds producing the corresponding

idea of causal change. When we will, our volition is no more than the occasion of

His acting on our bodies and effecting a movement, or change, corresponding to

our willing. Akin to this explanation of the origin of our concepts of causality and

of volition, is the doctrine of Leibniz on "pre-established harmony" between the

soul-monad and the material-monads. Conformably to the theory of the

Occasionalists, there is no transeunt, but only immanent, action to be admitted

in causal changes. Several of the considerations given above in the section

developing the doctrine of the Schoolmen anticipate this theory as an objection,

notably that which deals with the reductive nature of efficient causality by which

the potential is said to become actual and thus constitute the effect.

Hume

The problem of causation, for which a solution was advanced by the

Occasionalists in the introduction of God as sole efficient cause, was disposed

of by Hume in a still more drastic manner. His critical examination of the idea of

causality issues, in full accordance with his sensistic principles, in sheer

scepticism. Having previously reduced mind to no more than a succession of

perceptions, he declares: "To me there appear to be only three principles of

connection among ideas, namely, Resemblance, Contiguity in time or place, and

Cause or Effect" (Works, IV, 18). Thus, for Hume, causality is no more than a

relation between ideas. It is not an a priori relation, "but arises entirely from

experience, when we find that any particular objects are constantly conjoined

with each other" (ibid., 24). However, we can never comprehend any force or

power, by which the cause operates, or any connection between it and its

supposed effect. The same difficulty occurs in contemplating the operations of

mind on body.... So that, upon the whole, there appears not, throughout all

nature, any one instance of connection, which is conceivable by us" (ibid., 61

sqq.). Whence, then, does our conception of cause come? Not from a single

observed sequence of one event from another, for that is not a sufficient warranty

for us to form any general rule, but from the conjunction of one particular species

of event with another, in all observed instances. "But there is nothing", he writes,

in a number of instances, different from every single instance,

which is supposed to be exactly; except only, that after a repetition

of similar instances, the mind is carried by habit, upon the

appearance of one event, to expect its usual attendant, and to

believe that it will exist.... When we say, therefore, that one object

is connected with another, we mean only, that they have acquired

a connection in our thought, and give rise to this inference, by

which they become proofs of each other's existence (p. 63)

Hence Hume defines cause as that object, followed by another, "where, if the

first object had not been, the second would never have existed", or "an object

followed by another, and whose appearance always conveys the thought to that

other" (ibid.). In this doctrine Hume advances a psychological explanation of the

origin of the idea (habit), but inculcates an utter scepticism as to the reality of

causation.

Reid

Hume's position was sharply attacked by Thomas Reid, who invoked "common

sense" to confute him, principally on account of the consequences of his

scepticism in the region of natural theology. But Reid, mistaking the doctrine of

the Schoolmen as to perception--he supposed that Scholasticism taught that the

species sensibilis was that which is perceived, rather than that by which the

sensible object is perceived--went so far as to assert that sense perception is the

same as intellectual judgment. Reid was accused by Kant of having altogether

misunderstood the point of the question raised by Hume; and was defended by

Galluppi, who instead makes Kant mistaken as to Hume's meaning. Kant

represents Hume as saying: "Metaphysical causation is not in the objects

observed; therefore it is a product of the imagination based on custom or habit."

This he alters to: "Causation is not in the things observed; therefore it is in the

observer." But Hume's real argument is: "Metaphysical causality is not in the

things observed; therefore it cannot be in the observer, in whom all is derived from

observation." This, he says, Reid thoroughly understands, and pertinently retorts:

"As a matter of fact the concept of metaphysical causation is in the intellect;

and, since it is not derived from the things observed, it must therefore be a

subjective law of the observer." Had Reid not misunderstood the import of the

species sensibilis his appeal to "common sense" would have given him a greater

affinity to the Schoolmen. His division of first principles as necessary or

contingent has the metaphysical in the first category. Among these he places

the principle of causation, thus assigning it a place as a necessary first principle,

prior to all experience and independent of it.

Thomas Brown, whose work was said by Mackintosh to be "all open revolt

against the authority of Reid", agrees with Hume in resolving causality into

invariable succession, but dissents from his theory that the idea has its origin in

"habit", and contends, with Reid, that it is an intuitive, or first truth. His analysis

of consciousness into "the whole series of states of the mind", and consequent

denial that there is a consciousness capable of knowing its own states, is,

however, in explicit contradiction with Reid's teaching. Thus, Reid having

overlooked the point of transition from phenomenal observance to noumenal truth,

Brown still further separates the two and prepares the way for Hamilton and Mill,

the former of whom makes our notion of causality a belief dependent upon a

powerlessness of our nature to think otherwise. The latter explains causality as

uniform antecedence, the growth of human experience and not to be extended

beyond the realm of experience. "In distant parts of the stellar regions", he

writes, "where the phenomena may be entirely unlike those with which we are

acquainted, it would be folly to affirm that this general law prevails." (System of

Logic, III, xxi.)

Kant

Hume was the philosophical predecessor of Kant. We accordingly find in the

"Kritik der reinen Vernunft" that, on the question of causality, the doctrine of

Kant, to a considerable extent, is in substantial agreement with that of the

Scottish sceptic. Where Hume posited a repetition of similar instances of

connection, by the observance of which is set up a habit that accounts

psychologically for the idea of necessary causation, Kant advances a regular

succession of effect from cause. This regular succession, whatever it may

chance to be in nature, is physical causation. But we cannot know anything of it

a priori. There is, as far as we can discover, no reason why A should succeed to

B, rather than to C, D, or E. Whatever the order of succession is de facto, we

must learn by observation, since there is nothing in the nature of things, so far as

we can judge, to make one the consequent of another rather than of some third.

We do, however, know--and this a priori--that the order of succession, whatever it

may actually happen to be, is, and must be, regular. This follows from a

fundamental position of the Kantian philosophy. Space and time are a priori

concepts, or subjective forms. All phenomenal successions, whatever they may

be, exist in time and space. Or, rather, time is regular succession, just as space

is regular reciprocal occupancy. Hence, whatever the things existing in space

may de facto be, and however the order of succession may happen to take

place, the one must be definitely determined to some set of reciprocal relations,

and the other must be one, definite, and irreversible. We arrive at a knowledge of

the one actual order of succession, of which some one order must be, by

observation; but the datum of a regular order is known beforehand. Efficient

causality, therefore, in the world, as regular succession, is an a priori item of

knowledge. What the precise order is remains to be discovered, and its

formulation is the formulation of natural laws. Between cause, then, and effect

there is a constant and necessary relation; but the effect is not in the cause. In

the scheme of categories developed by Kant, cause and effect fall under the

head of Relation, together with substance and accident, and action and passion.

But the relation is known through experience, and consequently is of no value

beyond the realm of experience. No inference can be made from it to God, as

cause. The cosmological proof is thus rejected by Kant.

LATER SPECULATIONS

From Kant onwards the two lines of thought already noted become yet more

clearly marked. Indeed the elements of both are to be found in his own writings.

On the one hand, the idealistic development of philosophic thought reaches its

expression in Hegel, Schopenhauer, etc. On the other, science, as such, limits

itself more and more to purely mechanical concepts. The problems of causality

are referred to the idealistic standpoint, or else are treated in terms of matter and

motion, with no reference to the essences of the effects.

Hegel and Schopenhauer

With Hegel causality takes the form of the development of the Idea, as the

Absolute in itself (an sich), through its manifestation as otherness (für sich), and

back to identity (an und für sich). All that is, in the way of cause, is the working

out, or unfolding, and coming back to itself, of the Absolute Idea. Being is

becoming. The Hegelian notion of Being as essentially pure thought issues

naturally in a kind of inversion of the ordinary notion of causality; for, with Hegel,

the notion of causality is causality itself. Although he opposed Hegel and his

philosophy with great violence, the system of Schopenhauer is not greatly

dissimilar to this. Schopenhauer substitutes Will for Idea. The world, and its

processes, are the objectivized form of the Will. But, strictly speaking, Will

cannot be considered as cause and effect. Rather are these but two aspects of

one and the same thing. Thus Schopenhauer (as does to some extent von

Hartmann) reduces causality to the universal operation of a single ideal principle.

Both attenuate the idea of it, Schopenhauer by his extreme doctrine of relativity,

von Hartmann by his conception of the all-oneness of the Unconscious.

According to Schopenhauer, we call cause that state of objects which is followed

by another state (i.e. the effect), on account of the principle of sufficient reason of

becoming--principium rationis sufficientis fiendi.

Cause in Science

This last notion of causality, as mere sequence, but without any idealistic ground

to account for it, is that which principally obtains in current science. A given

event, in the instant A, is uniformly followed by a second given event in the

instant B. No implication of power, or dependence, is conceived or stated.

Similarly, a group of events, in one instant, is followed by another group in the

next; the total sum of things comprising the world is succeeded by the total sum

of things comprising the world in two succeeding instants. In all these cases, as

far as they are considered by science, the event or events of the prior instant are

always the cause of what follows, provided the succession is invariable. Thus the

same thing may conceivably be, and is sometimes said to be both cause and

effect, identical in all respects but that of succession in time. There need be no

necessary contradiction between such a view and that of philosophy; for science,

as such, does not consider the questions of metaphysics or seek to determine

the essential causes of beings. A relationship, given that it is invariable, as the

unconditional constant succession of John Stuart Mill, between the two or more

phenomena, is all that science demands and, under the particular abstractions

with which it deals, this is enough to ensure scientific results. A knowledge of

the conditions of the existence of certain phenomena is the principal aim of

science; and this is strictly pursued by observation, experiment, and the

application of mathematical methods. There is, consequently, no radical

opposition between the two provinces of knowledge, since both the ends sought

and the means employed in their search differ. Indeed were a man of science to

make any pronouncement as to the nature of essential causes or their mode of

causality, he would have overstepped the boundaries drawn by his science and

declared himself a metaphysician. As a matter of fact, there have not been

wanting scientists, whose habit of mind and training are entirely scientific and in

no sense metaphysical, who have done this very thing and attempted to give a

scientific solution of a purely metaphysical problem. There will be no need to give

any detailed account of such an attempt, the success of which is obviously

impossible. The scientific means at disposal are not equal to the task. But, on

the other hand, in its own sphere and working with its own particular

abstractions, science is quite competent to reach its own results in its own way,

and this without any necessary correction on the part of metaphysics.

Common Sense

It will be perceived that the period of groping for the concrete causes of things

gave place to one in which the synthesis of causes provided an explanation of

causality. The concept of the efficient cause--not of the causal nexus and

interaction as a whole--was, in the next stage, submitted to a critical analysis

resulting in scepticism, then rehabilitated either on idealistic or mechanical lines.

But the critical analysis, though it certainly led indirectly to both these later views

as to causality, was answered, by the appeal to "common sense", in a way that,

but for one missing factor, would probably have turned the current of philosophic

thought back to Scholasticism and the Aristotelean doctrine, as the only one

providing a satisfactory account, either of the action of what we call causes and

the production of effects in the world, or of the true origin of the idea of necessary

causality. For the theory of Aristotle and the Schoolmen can lay claim, most

truly, to a character of common sense. It is based upon the observation, by the

senses, of individual cases of causal action in the phenomenal world. So far it is

no more than in agreement with the common experience of mankind. But,

beyond this, it provides a suitable account of the manner in which an observation

of individual cases can become an intellectual concept. This it does in its theory

of the origin of ideas. In this point, then, the Scholastic system of philosophy can

be represented as in full accord with, and built out of, the common judgments of

mankind. It parts company with this only in requiring clearer evidence, using

stricter analysis and sharper criticism. Also, it proceeds farther, though still

along the lines traced by common sense, in its analyses and syntheses, until it

has presented natural knowledge as a complete and co-ordinate whole.

The fact, already alluded to, that several of the systems given to the world, even

after Hume's criticism, have much in common with, yet lack the conclusive and

convincing force of, the Scholastic system on this issue, would seem to argue in

favour of the claim of the latter to common sense or naturalness. As a

metaphysical theory, it has the merit of being straightforward, clear, and

consistent; and it accounts for that for which it professes to account without

ambiguity or circumlocution. That, as a matter of history, modern speculation on

this point did not return, confirmed and justified, to the earlier lines, after the

criticism of Hume, is probably due, in the main, to the fact that the full concept of

causality had been more or less lost sight of during the period preceding him. His

criticism was aimed at the possibility of a knowledge of causal efficiency; and

without an adequate theory of cognition, as well as a proper grasp of the

relationships between efficient cause and effect in the process of becoming, the

idea of efficiency, or power, is indeed inexplicable. Thus, while in the idealistic

theories the attempt is made to restate the problem on a new basis, and solve it

by reference to the manifestation, in one or another form, of Spirit, modern

science pursues its own course and limits itself to the investigation of purely

scientific conditions. Neither the one nor the other, properly speaking, raises the

question as to the true and immediate causes of the qualities or essences of

entities, for both have abandoned that standpoint from which alone the problem,

in this sense, is envisaged.

Cause in Law

Cause, in law, embraces any action, suit, or other original proceeding, between a

plaintiff and a defendant. A cause of action is the entire set of facts that give rise

to an enforceable claim. It includes the right of action; but the right does not

necessarily include the cause. Thus, by lapse of time, a cause may cease to be

actionable; or by legal enactment, as in the case of a solicitor, who cannot sue

for his bill of costs until one month after its delivery. Until the expiry of the time

there is no cause of action.

Francis Aveling

Transcribed by Rick McCarty

The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume III

Nihil Obstat, November 1, 1908. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor

Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York

The Catholic Encyclopedia: NewAdvent.org