of the great genera within these kingdoms. And when we take the still larger view of cosmic evolution, this element of progression or ascent becomes the central one in the conception.
(3) Causation. — This would be better described as natural causation or physical causation, in order to distinguish it, by an apt term, from another element which, we shall presently see, enters into evolution, and which we should correspondingly name metaphysical or supernatural[1] causation. The causation we are considering now is directly involved in evolution by the preceding elements — Change and Progression. We should mean by it the Mechanism, the Chemism, or the Association, involved in the changes of phenomena. The habit of popular speech and surface thought is to regard and describe causation as a process by which one phenomenon “produces” another. But an exacter thought states the two as simply in a certain relation, the relation of Cause and Effect. To such thought, causation holds both in physical and psychical succession, and means a peculiar connexion, or nexus, between phenomena.
The philosophy of evolution most current, based on the dogma of the sense-origin of all knowledge, and on the sole and final efficiency of the method of
- ↑ The reader is warned that in interpreting this word in the present volume, he must divest himself of all its magical and thaumaturgical associations. It means nothing but supersensible, rational, or ideal.
