One generation of beings is not the cause of the following generation, else the former would have perished in begetting the latter. More particularly, a man is not the _effect_ of his parents or remoter ancestors, though they stood to him in an antecedent relation. The seed of his body was taken from theirs, but his energy is his own, drawn direct from the universal source. If he resembles them corporeally it is because he previously resembled them mentally, not because the cells of his body have hereditary tendencies to take particular forms. Hence the Darwinian genealogy of men and animals--supposing it were correct--does not explain them. It is a phenomenal schematism based on or implying an erroneous assumption--that generation is causation. Atomism--the theory of Democritus--is founded on another false view of causation. The physical parts of a thing are conceived to be the causes of the thing, and so the least conceivable particles of 'matter' are considered the first causes and true explanation of all things. This notion appears to be useful in chemistry, but it cannot be accepted as philosophy. If our senses were sharpened to perceive atoms these would simply be small phenomena, and it would still be necessary to inquire what motive and power produced them. It has been suggested that atoms may be inherently sentient and dynamic: if so they are minute animals or cells, and we are still without an explanation of their occurrence in organised masses. It is inconceivable that they should spontaneously enter into intricate combinations, whose evident purpose has only an indirect and partial bearing on their welfare. Though advocated by men of undoubted ability, Atomism and Evolution are nothing more than forms of the ordinary realistic belief, that things are caused by their physical antecedents. The two theories are supposed to be complementary, but in reality they are contradictory. If an animal body is caused by its parents it cannot be caused by its own atoms, and _vice versâ_. _Varieties of Causation._ Abstract causation--the category--consists of a cause and an effect. The former, as we have seen, is complicated, the latter may comprise several objects. Ignoring the complications involved in the use of an organism--which comes between the mind and the final effect--we distinguish four or five varieties of causation. C--_e_^1--_e_^2--_e_^3--_e_^4 The cause C produces from its own energy the series of effects _e_^1--_e_^4, like the rebounding of a missile from the surface of ground or water. This may be called 'ricochet.' Effects, each having an independent cause, sometimes form a series like a ladder: _e_^1 _e_^2 _e_^3 _e_^4 _e_^5 | | | | | C C C C C This is the species illustrated by a successive discharge of musketry. The causation of science consists of the _effects_ in this species considered apart from the causes.