Chapter 3

Origin Of The Ideas Of Cause And Effect

615. The idea of cause, taken with the idea of substance, forms the basis of human knowledge. We shall not be wasting time, therefore, if we try to clarify its origin and show its validity clearly enough to prevent foolish attempts to overthrow the foundation of knowledge, the source of human dignity.

Common sense asserts: 'That which happens must have a cause'. Our aim is to discover why human beings agree about this; why they accept it as evident; why they use it as a rule from the moment they begin to reason, although forming it much later as an abstract proposition worthy of philosophical attention. The origin assigned to the idea of cause must show how it comes to exist in the mind and explain the facts we have indicated. How is this idea conceived so easily? How can the uneducated, and even children, employ it as soon as they begin to chatter? How can we explain children's fascination with the why? of things, and their determination to know the cause of what affects their senses so wonderfully?

To answer these questions, let us: 1. express as clearly as possible the proposition we want to demonstrate; 2. analyse it in order to pinpoint its difficulty; 3. explain the difficulty.

616. We have to demonstrate the following proposition: 'Every fact (change) necessarily requires a cause capable of producing it'. By fact I mean any action whatsoever, whether its effect is found externally or internally, provided it indicates some change or, in the most general sense, some movement. It is not necessary for me to describe the various kinds of possible actions because my intention is to include in this word any type of action whatsoever. The proposition effectively states: every time we perceive an action, we perceive an agent or cause of this action. Explaining this fact, describing how it comes about in us, or showing the way in which we come to the idea of cause from the idea of some fact (happening, action), is to indicate the origin of the idea of cause.

617. The proposition we have undertaken to analyse is a judgment made up of three parts: 1. a fact, a happening or an action that we must have conceived mentally; 2. the connection between this action and the unknown agent or cause; 3. the idea of this agent or cause. To explain how we mentally conceive such a judgment, we have to show how we come to conceive each of the three parts of which it is composed.

618. We first perceive the action, or happening, with the help of our internal and external sensibility. Our consciousness assures us of our passivity when real, corporeal things impinge upon the nerves of our body (1) , and of our activity when we will to do something and, through the stimulus of our will, go on to think, move, etc. Through the idea of being we proceed to form the idea of action, both that produced by us and that which happens in us without our positive intervention. When we have acquired the concept of action and mentally conceived different kinds of action, we also learn of the existence of other real actions either through what fellow human beings(2) tell us, or by imagining them for ourselves.

It is not difficult, therefore, to explain how we perceive action and form various concepts of it. We know it primarily through what takes place in us (given the idea of being), and through similar things which we can imagine happening to us. Moreover, our consciousness provides awareness of all the actions of which we ourselves are the authors and causes. We realise that it is we ourselves who desire, think, and so on. The cause of all these kinds of actions, therefore, is known to us, by perception; we know that we ourselves are doing these things. Analysing them, we distinguish 'myself', as responsible for them (their cause), from the actions caused. In this way, we form the idea of cause relative to actions done by us. Once more, there is no difficulty, although here we already have an idea of cause.

619. We now have to show that the idea of cause contains something clearly seen as necessary to every happening or action. Our proposition ran as follows: 'Every new fact demands a cause'. In this proposition, one finds a necessary connection between what is produced and what produces, between action and agent. But a necessary connection between two ideas must come from the nature itself of the ideas which, like relative terms, cannot be thought separately. One of them is entailed in the thought and definition of the other in such a way that an analysis of the two concepts inevitably shows their mutual interconnection.

The whole difficulty lies here. We have to submit the two terms of the proposition to a rigorous analysis and show that: 1. action, and 2. cause, (that which produces action), cannot be thought except together. If we succeed in doing this, we shall also have shown that: 1. a fact or happening cannot be thought without a cause; 2. no cause can be conceived mentally without thought of at least a possible effect. After this, it will only be necessary to indicate the way in which we acquire one or other of these ideas. Analysis showing them mutually dependent will also demonstrate that the presence of one accounts for the presence of the other.

The idea of action, and the pure and simple idea of a cause presents no difficulty. These ideas are given by experience and interior awareness. We are conscious of our actions, and of being their cause, as we have seen (cf. 618). The difficulty lies in showing that when we think of action, we also think implicitly of cause, and vice-versa. Let us examine the problem.

620. All things, including actions, can be objects of the understanding (cf. 603). But according to the principle of cognition (cf. 564-565), every intellectual operation has being or a being as its object. The understanding can think about what belongs to or determines being or a being only in so far as this element is a determination of being or a being. But in order to think what belongs to a being, the understanding must first think the being, and through it mentally conceive and understand these determinations(3). So much has been seen in the course of our work.

If the matter has been understood carefully it will not raise difficulties, although the rather abstract language employed in the work may be an obstacle to comprehension. We could perhaps make things easier to follow by trying to present the teaching more immediately and directly.
First, it is only possible to think of two kinds of things: 1. a being; 2. some quality or attribute belonging to a being. Readers may assure themselves of this by examining all possible objects of their thought. In the end, they will see everything they understand classed either as a being, or as something belonging or related to a being.

It is important, however, to understand the word being correctly, and not to restrict its meaning unduly. By the word being, I understand that which is. Hence, anything which is not a being, or is not even included in being, is nothing. The word being embraces everything; nothing is excluded; outside everything, there is nothing. If we mentally conceive something, therefore, either we conceive a being, or something contained in a being. The opposite would be a plain contradiction. It would imply saying and denying something simultaneously. We would not be speaking, but 'sounding off' unintelligibly.

It is true, of course, that through abstraction we can consider what belongs to a being as separate from the being. We do not make into an independent being what we have separated. Moreover, we have first had to think of the being as a whole; our abstraction is made from the idea of the being. We cannot abstract or separate something from a whole if we do not first possess the whole from which the required part is detached and separated.

The things that are not beings of themselves, or being, but belong to some being in which they are perceived, are intellectual abstractions presupposing the total idea of the thing of which they are a part. Consequently, 'a being is thought per se; through a being, we think the things contained in it, or belonging to it, or in any way related to it, by using our faculty of abstraction'. The truth of this principle can also be understood by considering carefully the nature of abstract ideas. When we separate a quality or relationship, or any of its parts, from a being, we have indeed separated and cut it off mentally from the being as a whole. We are not deceived, however, because we can view the part only as belonging to the being as a whole. It is impossible for the understanding to think of anything belonging to the being without first thinking the being itself. If the understanding then fixes its attention willingly upon a part of the being (which is what abstraction means), it never forgets (unless it deceives itself) that the part is inseparable from the being in which it is seen to exist.

621. If these very simple principles are kept in mind, it is not difficult to see how the understanding forms for itself the idea of cause. In our perceptions, as we have said, we are conscious of an action done in us of which we are not the authors. If we did initiate the action, we would perceive it as something belonging to us, that is, we would perceive the action (something appertaining to a being) in our being and thus provide all the conditions necessary for the implementation of intellective perception. But if our consciousness provides an action for our understanding without also proferring an author of the action, could we perceive and understand it? An action is not a being, nor does it make a being subsist (substance). It merely belongs to a being(4). Moreover, we have seen that the understanding cannot conceive anything except through the conception of a being and that which the being contains. In this case, therefore, the intellect conceives action only by referring it to a being as yet unknown, but necessarily possessing or producing the action. This being we call cause.

These are all undeniable propositions, comprising an irrefutable demonstration that when the understanding thinks the idea of action of which we are not the authors, it must think a being different from ourselves as author of an action That is to say, it must think a cause.

We now have to explain how the understanding can think this being (cause) which is presented neither by consciousness nor by internal feeling. Although we have proved that it must do this, we have not shown how. Nevertheless, it will become clear if we draw together all that we have said in this section. The idea of a cause is the idea of a being that produces an action. Analysing this idea, we find it is composed of three parts: 1, an action; 2. a being; 3. their connection. Action is given by feeling; being is innate [App. no. 11]; their connection arises from the necessity already indicated as inherent to the nature of the understanding, or more properly of its objects which cannot be conceived mentally without being; being is the first thing conceived by the intellect because it is both the first thing to exist, and that through which everything else is conceived, because everything else exists through it.

622. When we, as intelligent natures, supply being to our sense-perception, we form the idea of substance, that is, of a being which we conceive as existing in itself, and not in something else. When we supply being in the intellective perception of an action, we form for ourselves the idea of cause, that is, a substance that carries out an action(5). Our act of understanding is similar in the formation of the idea of substance and of the idea of cause; both operations consist in supplying being(6) to what is provided by feeling or perception. This is possible through the identity of the subject ('myself') which feels, perceives intellectually, and reflects. We enjoy not only external and internal sense, but also possess the idea of being which constitutes our intellect [App. no. 12]. What is felt is perceived by the senses, and we refer it to being, considering it as a determination of being. We think a determined being, and hence the idea of substance. When we perceive an action, we refer it to being and consider it as an act of being. In this way, we come to perceive being as operative, and along with it the idea of cause. Substance is a being producing an act we consider as immanent to the substance itself (accident);(7) cause is a being producing an action outside itself (effect). The idea of substance is generated by need for a being antecedent to accidents; the need for a being antecedent to the existence of a contingent being generates the idea of another being or cause properly so called.

623. A feelable quality cannot stand without a substance; an action cannot stand without a cause. The understanding adds being to the feelable qualities, the terms of sensations, and forms a determined being; it adds to the action itself the being which produces action. In this way the understanding by completing sensation arrives at substance; by completing perception, it arrives at cause.

From the instant that being is present to the intellect, which it constitutes, the intellect can perceive nothing except beings. In intellective perception, therefore, the intellect can see only beings and, as a result, all it sees must have its explanation in those beings (de ratione entis). If it did not see everything in this way, it would not see beings. But to admit that it sees beings, and deny that it sees what has its explanation in being is to affirm and deny the same thing. This is not difficult to understand if we grasp that beings and their explanation are in fact the same thing. All this follows from knowing that the idea of being is the most universal and the simplest of all ideas.

Hence when we perceive with our sense some appurtenance of a being which has its explanation in the being, such as sensations or action towards which we are passive, we immediately perceive substance and argue to cause because we have a continual, fundamental, natural vision of being. Our perception of a substance and our conception of a cause is simply 'perception of a being possessing feelable qualities, to which we attribute the action that we experience or perceive in ourselves'.

When a philosopher has demonstrated his teaching, he is permitted the use of images. Let us say, therefore, that indetermined being, continually and unmovably present to us, is like a sheet of white paper laid out before us; the determinations of the object are accidental additions, like writing on the sheet of paper. The writing, or determinations of the object to which our intellect continually directs its watchful, interior gaze, are sensations, or feelings referred to being as terms to their principle. Hence with the same act with which we see being, we also see in it, and never without it, its determinations. We are like people gazing at a screen, and beholding all that takes place upon it. [...]

624. Our understanding, therefore, is governed by the following law which it receives from the nature of its object: it must complete feeling and perception. The nature of the understanding consists in a continual gaze focusing on being and beings, which beholds everything as possessing its explanation in beings, such as the determinations and conditions of the beings themselves. When the special power of internal or external sense provides determinations of beings, the understanding naturally integrates and completes them. With our internal vision we inevitably add being to what we sense and form of it a determined being to which we again add all that necessarily belongs to the being. This intellective capacity of ours can be called 'the understanding's integrative faculty'.

625. We have shown that the understanding cannot mentally conceive feelable qualities without thinking a substance. This argument is universally applicable, and valid not only for external qualities of bodies but also for facts connected with internal feeling. As we have said, human beings when thinking of feelable qualities, think them in a subject and thus form the idea of substance in the way we have explained. Let us apply the same argument to facts connected with internal sense, that is, to feelings. Human beings have interior feelings; they are aware of possessing ideas, along with spiritual pains and pleasures. Intellectually they conceive these feelings of theirs and refer such modifications to themselves as to existing beings. In this way, they can form the idea of their own substance.

626. But the reality of our own substance is presented to our understanding in another, more immediate way. The feeling of SELF is a substantial feeling. Our understanding, therefore, does not supply, but perceives our own substance immediately in the feeling providing it. Perception of one's own substance enables the intellect, after abstracting the judgment invariably united to intellective perception, to acquire immediately the positive idea of substance.

627. There is a very noticeable difference, therefore, between perceiving the substance of external bodies and that of our spirit. In the perception of external bodies, our feeling receives a force to which we refer sensations as effects, considering them as feelable qualities determining that force. This force is indeed a substantial action, but it is not a being because it lacks subjective existence. But because we have to consider that force as a being (this is a necessary condition of our perceiving it intellectually), we attribute to it a mode of subjective existence which makes it exist in itself, and not only relative to us. In this way, we assign to the force the support or substance without which it would not be a being. However, because we do not experience this substance except in its action upon us, we conceive the being to which this action belongs without giving it further definition; for us, it remains the proximate cause of that action.

As a result, some philosophers have considered the substance of bodies untraceable. We are in fact obliged to consider as substance the agent acting in us to which we give the substantive name, body. This agent is therefore a substance determined by a relationship, although the relationship is real. We, on the contrary, call this extrasubjective; within this field, the idea that we have of the substance of bodies contains nothing positive but only something foreign to ourselves, to our own subject. The understanding does not think positively any other subject whatsoever. But there is a substantial subject in the perception of our own substantial feeling. Here we need only apply the idea of being; we do not need to supply substance together with a concept of relationship.

628. Finally, we affirm that we can perceive our own body as we perceive any other foreign body, that is, extrasubjectively, and as the term of our internal feeling, subjectively. But we shall have to deal with the subjective perception of our body at greater length later.

Notes

(1) I express myself like this to determine the action in some way. In fact, knowledge that our body has been touched by real things comes after awareness of our passivity, and the expression used is posterior to our experience.

(2) Language would be of no use to us unless we already possessed the ideas signified by language, or had the capacity for forming them on the occasion of sounds that we hear.[...]

(3) It is easy to see that this necessity arises from the nature of what is thought. It is therefore an objective necessity, not a subjective law of the intellectual faculty. A being's determinations exist only relative to the being. But because the determinations can be mentally conceived only in so far as they exist, it would be absurd to say that they could be conceived before, or independently of the being to which they belong, and through which they are something.

(4) We prove this proposition from the definition of the action of which we are speaking. We are not considering first, immanent act, which is existence itself, but an action following upon first, immanent act.

(5) We could imagine something operating differently from substances: one thought, for example, produces another. This takes place, however, through abstraction. The true cause of all our thoughts is the substance of the spirit.

(6) 'Supplying being' does not mean that we create it, or produce it as something immanent to ourselves; it is the object of our intuition from the first moment of our existence.

(7) Although substance is therefore 'cause' relative to accidents, it is not considered such in so far as it produces something, but as an act of being relative to its terms which exist through and in this act. We need to remember that all these concepts are abstractions.