CAUSE
464
CAUSE
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 multi- plicity 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 pro- duced out of Him nor out of an already existing sub- ject. 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 sub- stantial 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.
Though the Scholastic philosophy never fell into complete desuetude, nor ever lacked distinguished exponents of its principles, the upheaval of the six- teenth 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 indulg- ing largely in stereotyped, and often useless, specula- tions, in which a perplexing number of concrete cases of causality figure, brought. Scholasticism into disre- pute; 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. In his "Instauratio magna", Bacon gave impetus to the movement. While accepting the traditional fourfold division of causes, he was of opin- ion 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 In- 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 approxi- mating in meaning to the eiSos of Aristotle. Both Bacon, as is In 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 diversity 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. The opinion of Descartes on this
head, together with his complete dualism of body and
mind, lea to the theory of causality, already advanced
by certain Arabs in the eleventh and twelfth centu-
ries, 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, Geulincx (Leibniz) — taught that
created things do not themselves possess any effective
activity, but are merely occasions in which the activ-
ity 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
connexion or relation between body and soul. When
God acts in nature producing effects, or things, oc-
casioned 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 sec-
tion developing the doctrine of the Schoolmen antici-
pate 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.
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 examina- tion 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 connexion 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 be- tween 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 com- prehend any force or power, by which the cause oper- ates, or any connexion 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 connexion, which is conceivable by us" (ibid., 61 sqq. ). Whence, then, does our con- ception 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 in- stances, different from every single instance, which is supposed to be exactly similar; except only, that after a repetition of similar instances, the mind is carried by habit, upon the appearance of one event, to exjicct 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 connexion in our thought, and give rise to this in- ference, by which they become proofs of each other's existence (p. 63). Hence Hume defines cause as
