Ontology, or the Theory of Being

by P. Coffey

Chapter XIII. Causality; Classification Of Causes.

94. Traditional Concept of Cause.—The modes of real being which we have been so far examining—substance, quality, quantity, relation—are modes of reality considered as static. But it was pointed out in an early chapter (ch. [ii.]) that the universe of our experience is subject to change, that it is ever becoming, that it is the scene of a continuous world-process which is apparently regulated by more or less stable principles or laws, these laws and processes constituting the universal order which it is the duty of the philosopher to study and explain. We must now return to this kinetic and dynamic aspect of reality, and investigate the principles of change in things by a study of Causes.

As with the names of the other ultimate categories, so too here, the general sense of the term “cause” (causa, αἴτιον) is familiar to all, while analysis reveals a great variety of modalities of this common signification. We understand by a cause anything which has a positive influence of any sort on the being or happening of something else. In philosophy this is the meaning which has been attached traditionally to the term since the days of Aristotle; though in its present-day scientific use the term has almost lost this meaning, mainly through the influence of modern phenomenism.[434] The traditional notion of cause is usually expounded by comparing it with certain kindred notions: principle, condition, occasion, reason.

A principle is that from which anything proceeds in any way whatsoever.[435] Any sort of intrinsic connexion between two [pg 358] objects of thought is sufficient to constitute the one a “principle” of the other; but a mere extrinsic or time sequence is not sufficient. A logical principle is some truth from which further truths are or may be derived. A real principle is some reality from which the being or happening of something originates and proceeds.[436] If this procession involves a real and positive influence of the principle on that which proceeds from it, such a real principle is a cause. But there may be a real and intrinsic connexion without any such influence. For instance, in the substantial changes which occur in physical nature the generation of the new substantial formative principle necessarily presupposes the privation of the one which antecedently “informed” the material principle; but this “privatio formae” has no positive influence on the generation of the new “form”; it is, however, the necessary and natural antecedent to the generation of the latter; hence although this “privatio formae” is a real principle of substantial change (the process or fieri) it is not a cause of the latter. The notion of principle, even of real principle, is therefore wider than the notion of cause.[437]

A condition, in the proper sense of a necessary condition or conditio sine qua non, is something which must be realized or fulfilled before the event or effect in question can happen or be produced. On the side of the latter there is real dependence, but from the side of the former there is no real and positive influence on the happening of the event. The influence of the condition is negative; or, if positive, it is only indirect, consisting in the removal of some obstacle—“removens probibens”—to the positive influence of the cause. In this precisely a condition differs from a cause: windows, for instance, are a condition for the lighting of a room in the daylight, but the sun is the cause. The distinction is clear and intelligible, nor may it be ignored in [pg 359] a philosophical analysis of causality. At the same time it is easy to understand that where, as in the inductive sciences, there is question of discovering all the antecedents, positive and negative, of any given kind of phenomenon, in order to bring to light and formulate the law or laws according to which such phenomenon occurs, the distinction between cause and condition is of minor importance.[438]

An occasion is any circumstance or combination of circumstances favourable to the action of a free cause. For instance, a forced sale is an occasion for buying cheaply; night is an occasion of theft; bad companionship is an occasion of sin. An occasion has no intrinsic connexion with the effect as in the case of a principle, nor is it necessary for the production of the effect as in the case of a condition. It is spoken of only in connexion with the action of a free cause; and it differs from a cause in having no positive and direct influence on the production of the effect. It has, however, a real though indirect influence on the production of the effect by soliciting and aiding the determination of the free efficient cause to act. In so far as it does exert such an influence it may be regarded as a partial efficient cause, not a physical but a moral cause, of the effect.

To ask for the reason of any event or phenomenon, or of the nature or existence of any reality, is to demand an explanation of the latter; it is to seek what accounts for the latter, what makes this intelligible to our minds. Whatever is a cause is therefore also a reason, but the latter notion is wider than the former. Whatever explains a truth is a logical reason of the latter. But since all truths are concerned with realities they must have ultimately real reasons, i.e. explanatory principles inherent in the realities themselves. The knowledge of these real or ontological principles of things is the logical reason of our understanding of the things themselves. But the ontological principles, which are the real reasons of the things, are wider in extent than the causes of these things, for they include principles that are not causes.

Furthermore, the grades of reality which we discover in things by the activity of abstract thought, and whereby we compare, classify and define those things, we apprehend as explanatory principles of the latter; and these principles, though really in the things, and therefore real “reasons,” are not “causes”.

Thus, life is a real reason, though not a cause, of sensibility in the animal organism; the soul's independence of matter in its mode of existence is a real reason, though not a cause, of its spiritual activities. Hence, between a reason and that which it accounts for there may be only a logical distinction, while between a cause and that which it causes there must be a real distinction ([38]).

To understand all the intrinsic principles which constitute the essence of anything is to know the sufficient reason of its reality. To understand all the extrinsic principles which account for its actual existence is to know the sufficient reason of its existence; and to understand this latter adequately is to realize that the thing depends ultimately for its actual existence on a Reality or Being which necessarily exists by virtue of its own essence.