Cause and Effect Need to be Tied to Each Other

The Efficacy of Causes Creates a Needed and Consequential Connection from Its Effects

I have explained how we:

• reason beyond our immediate impressions, and
• conclude that such causes must have such effects

Why do cause and effect need to be connected to each other? (Section 2)

All our ideas are derived from impressions. We must find some impression that creates this need. To do this, I consider where the need arises. It is always ascribed to causes and effects. I look at two objects, one is the cause and the other, the effect.

I examine them in all situations and immediately perceive that:

• they are contiguous in time and place, and
• the object that we call ‘cause’ precedes the object we call ’effect’.

I cannot go any further.

It is impossible for me to discover any third relation between these objects.

I enlarge my view to comprehend instances where I find similar objects always existing successively and contiguously.

Thinking about these several instances only repeats the same idea of cause and effect. Therefore, it can never create a new idea. But on further inquiry, I find that the repetition is not the same. Each repetition creates a new impression. This new impression needs the connection that produced it. After a frequent repetition, I find that on the appearance of one of the objects, the mind is determined by habit to consider its usual attendant. The mind considers that attendant in a stronger light because of its relation to the first object. This impression or determination gives me the idea of the needed or consequential connection between cause and effect. These consequences will be initially received easily as deductions from our previous principles.

These deductions create an evidence that might: make us unaware of the importance of the idea of a need or consequence, make us imagine that this need or consequence contains nothing extraordinary, and make us forget this need or consequence. But in fact, this evidence is the base of the most sublime topics in philosophy: the power and efficacy of causes. All the sciences seem so much interested in it. I hope that my reasoning on the need for cause and effect to connect to each other will: rouse the reader’s attention, and make the reader want: a fuller account of my doctrine, and the arguments on which my doctrine is founded. The efficacy of causes leads to their effects.

This question of efficacy is important and difficult. It has created the most disputes among ancient and modern philosophers. Before they entered these disputes, it would have been better to examine the idea of that efficacy. I find this principally lacking in their reasonings so I will supply it here. The terms of efficacy, agency, power, force, energy, necessity, connection, and productive quality are all nearly synonymous.

It is absurd to use any of them to define the rest. We reject at once all the shallow definitions of power and efficacy. Instead of searching for the idea in these definitions, must look for it in the impressions where it is originally derived from. If it is a compound idea, it must arise from compound impressions. If it is a simple idea, it must arise from simple impressions. The Needed or Consequential Connection Between Cause and Effect Does not Mean that Those Causes Have Innate Power or Innate Ideas The most general and popular explanation of this (Locke, chapter of power) is that we experience several new productions in matter, such as the motions and variations of body.

We conclude that there must be a power capable of producing them. We then arrive at the idea of power and efficacy. This explanation is more popular than philosophical.

This is proven by two very obvious principles. Reason alone can never create any original idea. Reason, as distinguished from experience, can never make us conclude that a cause or productive quality is absolutely needed to every beginning of existence. These two principles have been explained. Since reason can never create the idea of efficacy, that idea must be derived from: experience, and some particular instances of this efficacy. These instances make their way into the mind through impressions of sensation or reflection. Ideas always represent their objects or impressions.

Likewise, objects are needed to give rise to every idea. For us to have any idea of the efficacy of impressions creating ideas or ideas creating impressions, we must produce an experience where: the efficacy is plainly discoverable to the mind, and the operations of the efficacy are obvious. If we cannot, then the idea of such an efficacy is impossible and imaginary. Only the principle of innate ideas can save us from this impossibility. But the principle of innate ideas has: already been refuted, and is now almost universally rejected in the learned world. We must find some natural effect, where the operation and efficacy of a cause can be clearly conceived and comprehended by the mind, without any mistake. Some philosophers have pretended to explain the secret force and energy of causes. (Father Malbranche, Book 6, Part 2, Chapter 3)

Some maintain that bodies operate by their substantial form. Others, by their accidents or qualities. Several, by their matter and form. Some, by their form and accidents. Others, by certain virtues and faculties distinct from all this. All these feelings again: are mixed and varied in 1,000 ways, and form a strong presumption. None of these reasons have any solidity or evidence.

The supposition of an [ innate or predetermined ] efficacy in any of the known qualities of matter is entirely baseless. This fallacy becomes obvious when we consider that these principles of substantial forms, accidents, and faculties, are in reality not any of the known properties of bodies. Instead, they are perfectly unintelligible and inexplicable. Philosophers would never have proposed such obscure and uncertain principles, if they had clear and intelligible principles. This affair must be an object of the simplest understanding, if not of the senses. On the whole, we may conclude: that it is impossible in any one instance to show the principle, in which the force and agency of a cause is placed, and that the most refined and vulgar understandings are equally at a loss in finding that force. If anyone refutes this, he does not need to invent long reasonings. He just needs to show us an instance of a cause, where we discover the power or operating principle. We must frequently use this defiance, as almost the only means of proving a negative in philosophy. The small success in the attempts to fix this power, has obliged philosophers to conclude that: the ultimate force and effectiveness of nature is perfectly unknown to us, and it is in vain to search for it in all the known qualities of matter. They are almost unanimous in this opinion. This is their only inference from it. Descartes

The Cartesians established a principle that we are perfectly acquainted with the essence of matter.

They have very naturally inferred: that matter has no efficacy, that it is impossible for matter to: communicate motion, or produce any of the effects we ascribe to it, and that the essence of matter consists in space. Space does not imply actual motion, but only mobility. They therefore conclude that the energy which produces the motion cannot lie in space. This conclusion leads them into another unavoidable conclusion. They say that: matter is: entirely inactive in itself, and does not have any innate power for it to produce, continue, or communicate motion. Power must lie in the Deity, or that divine being who contains all perfection in his nature, since: these effects are obvious to our senses, and the power that produces them must be placed somewhere. The deity, therefore: is the prime mover of the universe, first created matter and gave it its original impulse, supports its existence, by a continued exertion of omnipotence, and successively bestows on existence all of its motions, configurations, and qualities. This opinion is very curious and well worth our attention. But it will appear superfluous if we reflect why we notice it. All ideas are derived from impressions, or some precedent perceptions. We can only have an idea of power and efficacy, if there are instances where we can perceive this power exert itself. These instances can never be discovered in bodies. The Cartesians follow their principle of innate ideas.

This led them to a supreme spirit or deity. They consider this deity as: the only active being in the universe, and the immediate cause of every change in matter. But the principle of innate ideas is false. It follows that the supposition of a deity is useless in accounting for that idea of agency. We search for that agency in vain in all the objects: presented to our senses, or which we are internally conscious of. If every idea were derived from an impression, then the idea of a deity should also proceed from an impression. If no impression, of sensation or reflection, implies any force or effectiveness, it is equally impossible to discover or imagine any such active principle in the deity. They concluded that matter cannot be endowed with any principle of effectiveness, because it is impossible to discover any principle of effectiveness in matter. The same reasoning should make them exclude it from the supreme being. But this opinion is absurd and impious to them, and it really is. They can avoid this opinion by concluding from the beginning, that they have no adequate idea of power or effectiveness in any object, since they are unable to discover an instance of that power or effectiveness in body or spirit, in either superior or inferior natures. Other philosophers maintain the efficacy of second causes.

They attribute a derivative, real power and energy to matter. They confess that this energy does not lie in any of the known qualities of matter. The difficulty still remains on the origin of its idea. If we really have an idea of power, we may attribute power to an unknown quality. But it is impossible that that idea of power can be derived from such a quality because nothing in known qualities can produce that power. It follows that we deceive ourselves when we imagine we have any idea of power in this way. All ideas are derived from, and represent impressions. We never have any impression that contains any power or efficacy. Therefore, we never have any idea of power. Human Will Cannot Be the Natural Cause of Physical Phenomena Some have asserted that we feel an energy or power in our own mind.

We transfer this power to matter when we are not able immediately to discover it. Our body’s motions and our mind’s thoughts and feelings obey the will. We do not seek further to acquire a just notion of force or power. To convince us how false this reasoning is, we only need to consider that the will is here considered as a cause.

The will does not have a discoverable connection with its effects, just as any material cause has a discoverable connection with its proper effect. The effect of the connection between an act of the will and a motion of the body is most inexplicable from the powers and essence of thought and matter. The empire of the will over our mind is not more intelligible. The effect there: is distinguishable and separable from the cause, and could not be foreseen without the experience of their constant conjunction. We have command over our mind to a certain degree. But beyond that, we lose all empire over it. It is impossible to fix any precise bounds to our authority when we do not consult experience. In short, the mind’s actions are the same with those of matter in this respect. We only perceive their constant conjunction. We can never reason beyond it. No internal impression has an apparent energy, more than external objects have. Since, therefore, matter is confessed by philosophers to operate by an unknown force, we should in vain hope to attain an idea of force by consulting our own minds. [Footnote 8] Footnote 8

The same imperfection attends our ideas of the Deity. But this can have no effect on religion or morals. The order of the universe proves an omnipotent mind. That mind has a will which is constantly attended with the obedience of every creature and being. Nothing more is needed to give a foundation to all the articles of religion. It is unnecessary that we should form a distinct idea of the force and energy of the supreme Being. It has been established as a principle:

that general or abstract ideas are just individual ideas taken in a certain light, and that in reflecting on any object, it is as impossible to exclude from our thought all degrees of its quantity and quality.. If we had any idea of power in general, we must also be able to conceive some kinds of it.

Power cannot subsist alone. It is always regarded as an attribute of some being or existence. We must be able to: place this power in some particular being, and conceive that being as endowed with a real force and energy which causes such effects. We must distinctly and particularly: conceive the connection between the cause and effect, and be able to pronounce, from a simple view of the one, that it must be followed or preceded by the other. This is the true way of conceiving a power in a body. A general idea is impossible without an individual idea. Where the latter is impossible, the former certainly can never exist. The human mind cannot create an idea of two objects which have a power to create a connection between themselves, by themselves.

Such a connection would result in a demonstration. It would imply that the objects could have the power not to follow the other. We have rejected this kind of connection. If anyone thinks that he has discovered an innate power in any object, he should show that object to me. Until then, I conclude that we can never think of how any power can innately reside in any object. We may infer that:

we really have no distinct meaning: when we talk of any being, superior or inferior, endowed with a power proportioned to any effect, and when we speak of a needed connection between objects and suppose that this connection depends on an effectiveness or energy, which any of these objects innately have, we use only common words, without any clear and determinate ideas. Those words lose their true meaning by being wrongly applied, rather than them never having any meaning. We shall see if we can discover the nature and origin of those ideas that we annex to those words. Suppose two objects are presented to us.

One is the cause. The other the effect. From the simple consideration of one or both these objects, we shall never: perceive the tie by which they are united, or be able certainly to pronounce that there is a connection between them. It is not from any one instance that we arrive at the idea of: cause and effect, and a need for a power, force, energy, and efficacy. If we never see any conjunctions of objects different from each other, we would never be able to create such ideas of cause and effect and innate power. Suppose we observe several instances when the same objects are always conjoined together. We immediately: conceive a connection between them, and begin to draw an inference from one to another. This multiplicity of resembling instances, therefore: constitutes the very essence of power or connection, and is the source of its idea. To understand the idea of power, we must consider that multiplicity. This is enought to solve that difficulty which has so long perplexed us. Thus, the repetition of perfectly similar instances can never alone create an original idea, different from the idea in any specific instance. It follows from our fundamental principle, that all ideas are copied from impressions. The idea of power is a new original idea.

It is not found in any one instance. It arises from the repetition of several instances. Therefore, the repetition alone does not lead to the idea of power. The repetition either discovers or creates something new. This creation is the source of the idea of power. If the repetition did not discover nor create anything new, our ideas might be multiplied by the repetition. But our ideas would not be enlarged above what they are on the observation of a single instance. Therefore, every enlargement (such as the idea of power or connection) which arises from the multiplicity of similar instances: is copied from some effects of the multiplicity, and will be perfectly understood by understanding these effects. Wherever we find anything new to be discovered or produced by the repetition, there we must:

place the power, and never look for it in any other object. Repetition Does Not Create Nor Discover Any Innate Power

1. The repetition of like objects in like relations of succession and contiguity discovers nothing new in any one of them, since we cannot:

draw any inference from it, nor make it a subject of our demonstrative or probable reasonings (Section 6). If we could draw an inference, it would be of no consequence in the present case, since no kind of reasoning can create a new idea such as this idea of power. Wherever we reason, we must antecedently have clear ideas, which may be the objects of our reasoning. The conception always precedes the understanding. Where the one is obscure, the other is uncertain. Where the one fails, the other must fail also. 2. This repetition of similar objects in similar situations produces nothing new in these objects or in any external body.

The several instances we have of the conjunction of resembling causes and effects are in themselves entirely independent. The communication of motion, which I see resulting from the shock of two billiard-balls, is totally distinct from the motion from the shock I saw a year ago. These impulses have no influence on each other. They are entirely divided by time and place. One might have existed and communicated motion, though the other never had been in being. There is then nothing new discovered or produced in any objects by:

their constant conjunction, and the uninterrupted resemblance of their relations of succession and contiguity. The ideas of necessity, power, and efficacy are derived from this resemblance.

These ideas, therefore, represent nothing that belongs or can belong to the objects constantly conjoined. This argument is perfectly unanswerable. Similar instances are still the first source of our idea of power or need in causes and effects. They have no influence by their similarity either on each other, or on any external object. We must, therefore, look elsewhere for the origin of that idea. The several resembling instances, which give rise to the idea of power:

have no influence on each other, and can never produce any new quality in the object, which can be the model of that idea. Yet the observation of this resemblance produces a new impression in the mind, which is its real model.

For after we have observed the resemblance in a sufficient number of instances, we immediately feel the mind’s determination to: pass from one object to its usual attendant, and conceive it in a stronger light because of that relation. This determination is the only effect of the resemblance. It must be the same with power or effictiveness, whose idea is derived from the resemblance. The several instances of resembling conjunctions lead us into the notion of power and necessity. These instances are: totally distinct from each other, and only united in the mind, which observes them and collects their ideas. The need to connect causes and effects, then, is:

the effect of this observation, nothing but an internal impression of the mind, or a determination to carry our thoughts from one object to another. Without considering it in this view, we can never:

arrive at the most distant notion of it, or be able to attribute it to: external or internal objects, spirit or body, and causes or effects. The connection needed between causes and effects is the foundation of our inference from one to the other.

The foundation of our inference is the transition arising from the accustomed union. Therefore, these are the same. The idea of necessity or need between causes and effects arises from some impression.

Our senses cannot convey an impression which can create a need. Therefore, the idea of a need must be derived from some: internal impression, or impression of reflection. The only internal impression that has any relation to necessity is the propensity produced by habit to pass from an object to the idea of its usual attendant.

Therefore, this is the essence of necessity. Necessity exists in the mind, not in objects. It is impossible for us to ever create the most distant idea of necessity as a quality in bodies. Either we have no idea of necessity, or necessity is nothing but the thought’s determination to pass from: causes to effects, and effects to causes, according to their experienced union. The necessity which makes 2 * 2 = 4, or three angles of a triangle equal to two right ones, lies only in the act of the understanding which considers and compares these ideas.

Similarly, the necessity or power which unites causes and effects, lies in the mind’s determination to pass from the one to the other. The effectiveness or energy of causes is not placed in: the causes themselves, the deity, nor the concurrence of these two principles. It belongs entirely to the soul, which considers the union of objects in all past instances. The real power of causes is placed in the soul along with their connection and necessity. This is the most violent paradox that I have advanced in this treatise.

It is merely by dint of solid proof and reasoning that I can ever hope for this paradox to: be accepted, and overcome mankind’s long-established prejudices. We must often repeat to ourselves that the simple view of any two objects or actions, however related, can never give us any idea of power or of a connection between them. The idea of the power between objects arises from the repetition of their union. The repetition does not discover nor cause anything in the objects. It has an influence only on the mind, by that customary transition it produces. Therefore, this customary transition is the same with the power and necessity which are: consequently qualities of perceptions, not of objects, internally felt by the soul, and not perceived externally in bodies. There is commonly an astonishment attending everything extraordinary.

This astonishment changes immediately into esteem or contempt, as we approve or disapprove of the subject. The foregoing reasoning is the shortest and most decisive imaginable. But I am afraid that bias will prevail in most readers. It will give them a prejudice against the present doctrine. This contrary bias is easily accounted for.

The mind has a great propensity to: spread itself on external objects, and imbue in them any internal impressions which they trigger. These internal impressions always appear at the same time that these objects discover themselves to the senses. For example, if certain sounds and smells always attend certain visible objects, we naturally imagine a conjunction, even in place, between the objects and qualities, even if the qualities: do not allow such conjunction, and do not exist. This is explained in Part 4, Section 5. The Power in Causes and Effects is Created by the Mind This propensity of the mind to imbue its impressions on objects is why we think that necessity and power lies in the objects we consider, and not in our mind that considers them.

It is impossible for us to create the idea of power and necessity, when the mind does not pass from the idea of an object to the idea of its usual attendant. This is our only reasonable account of necessity. Many will treat my feelings as extravagant and ridiculous if the contrary notion is so riveted in the mind from the above principles. Other people would say: What? The effectiveness of causes lies in the mind’s determination? Causes cannot operate entirely without the mind? Causes would stop operating if there were no mind to contemplate them, or no reason concerning them? Thought depends on causes for its operation, but causes do not depend on thought. This would reverse the order of nature and make the secondary as the primary. Every operation has a proportional power. This power must be placed on the body that it operates. If we remove the power from one cause, we must ascribe it to another cause. But it is a gross absurdity to: remove power from all causes, and bestow it on a being that is related only to the cause or effect by perceiving them. This is contrary to the most certain principles of human reason. I reply that the case is the same as a blind man pretending to find many absurdities in:

red being different from the sound of a trumpet, or the light not being the same as solidity. If we have no idea of a power or effectiveness in any object, or of any real connection between causes and effects, it will be useless to prove that an effectiveness is needed in all operations.

We do not understand our own meaning in talking so. We ignorantly confound ideas which are distinct from each other. There are several qualities in material and immaterial objects which we are utterly unacquainted with. It will be of little consequence to the world if we call these power or effectiveness. Instead of meaning these unknown qualities, we make the terms of ‘power’ and ’effectiveness’ to signify something which: we have a clear idea of, and is incompatible with those objects we apply it to. Obscurity and error then begin to take place. We are led astray by a false philosophy. This is what happens when we: transfer the mind’s determination to external objects, and suppose any real intelligible connection between them. This connection is a quality which can only belong to the mind that considers them. The operations of nature are independent of our thought and reasoning.

Accordingly, objects bear the relations of contiguity and succession to each other. Like objects may be observed in several instances to have like relations. All this is independent of, and antecedent to the operations of the understanding. But if we go further and ascribe a power or necessary connection to these objects, we can never observe this in them. Instead, we get this idea from our own feeling when we think about them. For example, when any object is presented to us, it immediately conveys a lively idea of that object to the mind which is usually found to attend it. This determination of the mind forms the necessary connection of these objects. But when we change the point of view, from the objects to the perceptions: the impression is considered as the cause, the lively idea is considered as the effect, and their necessary connection is that new determination, which we feel to pass from the idea of the one to that of the other. The uniting principle among our internal perceptions is as unintelligible as the uniting principle among external objects, and is not known to us in any other way than by experience. The nature and effects of experience have been already explained. It never gives us any insight into the internal structure or operating principle of objects. It only accustoms the mind to pass from one to another. A Cause is Contiguous and Precedent to or United with its Effect and is Discovered by Experience We now collect all parts of this reasoning to form an exact definition of cause and effect.

We will first examine our inference from cause and effect before explaining cause and effect itself, because it is impossible to do it in a reverse way. The nature of cause and effect depends so much on its inference, that we have been obliged to: advance in this seemingly preposterous way, and use terms before we were able exactly to define them. We shall correct this fault by giving a precise definition of cause and effect. Cause and effect is either:

a philosophical relation, or This is a comparison of two ideas. a natural relation. This is an association between two ideas. Cause

A cause is Object A precedent and contiguous to Object B, where all the objects resembling Object A are placed in like relations of precedency and contiguity to objects that resemble Object B.

If this definition is defective because it is drawn from objects foreign to the cause, we may replace it with another definition: A cause is an object precedent and contiguous to another and so united with it: that the idea of the one determines the mind to create the idea of the other, and that the impression of the one determines the mind to form a more lively idea of the other. Should this definition also be rejected for the same reason, my only remedy is for its rejecters give a better definition. When I accurately examine objects called ‘causes’ and ’effects’, I find in a single instance, that the one object is precedent and contiguous to the other.

In enlarging my view to consider several instances, I find only that like objects are constantly placed in like relations of succession and contiguity. When I consider this constant conjunction’s influence, I perceive that such a relation: can never be an object of reasoning, and can operate on the mind only through the habit of transitioning from: the idea of one object to the idea of its usual attendant, and the impression of one object to a more lively idea of the other object. However extraordinary these feelings may appear, it is fruitless for me to further reason on the subject. Instead, I shall rest on them as I rest on established maxims. We shall draw some corrollaries from this subject, in order to remove prejudices and popular errors in philosophy.

Corollary 1: From the foregoing doctrine, we learn that all causes are of the same kind.

There is no foundation for our distinction between: effective causes and essential causes, effective causes, formal causes, material causes, exemplary causes, and final causes. Our idea of efficacy is derived from the constant conjunction of two objects. Where there is constant conjunction, the cause is effective. Where there is no constant conjunction, there can never be a cause. This is why we must reject the distinction between cause and occasion when meaning anything essentially different from each other. If constant conjunction is implied in occasion, then it is a real cause. If not, then: it is no relation at all, and it cannot create any argument or reasoning.

Corollary 2: The same reasoning will make us conclude that:

• there is but one kind of consequence, as there is but one kind of cause, and
• the common distinction between moral and physical consequence has no foundation in nature.

This clearly appears from the explanation of consequence.

A physical consequence between cause and effect is created by the constant conjunction of objects, along with the mind’s determination. If you remove these, then you get chance. Objects are either conjoined or not conjoined.

The mind must either be determined or not determined to pass from one object to another. It is impossible to admit of any medium between chance and an absolute consequence. In weakening this conjunction and determination, you do not change the nature of the necessity. Since even in the operation of bodies, these have different degrees of constancy and force, without producing a different kind of that relation. Our distinction between power and its exercise, is equally without foundation.

Corollary 3: We have proven that the need for a cause to every beginning of existence is not founded on any demonstrative or intuitive arguments.

Such a reasoning is repugnant, but we can overcome it with the following reasonings: If we define a cause to be something precedent and contiguous to an effect, where all the objects resembling the cause are placed in a similar way before and contiguous to their effects, then there is no absolute nor metaphysical need for every beginning of existence to have a cause.

We shall have less difficulty of assenting to this opinion if we define cause as an object that:

• precedes and is contiguous to another, and
• is so united with it in the imagination, that:
  • the idea of the one determines the mind to form the idea of the other, and
  • the impression of the one creates a more lively idea of the other.

Such an influence on the mind is in itself perfectly extraordinary and incomprehensible. We can only be certain of its reality from experience and observation. Corollary 4: Why would we believe that any object exists if we cannot form an idea of it?

All our reasonings on existence are derived from causation. All our reasonings on causation are derived from the experienced conjunction of objects, not from any reasoning or reflection. The same experience must: give us a notion of these objects, and remove all mystery from our conclusions. This is so obvious. We only needed to explain this for us to obviate objections that arise against the reasonings on matter and substance. A full knowledge of the object is not needed for it to exist. Only of the knowledge of its qualities, which we believe to exist, are needed.