Causation; Knowledge, Theory of; Philosophy, German; Reason
Here, however, a difficulty arises, which must be resolved. The
principle of the connection of causality among phenomena is limited in
our formula to the succession thereof, although in practice we find
that the principle applies also when the phenomena exist together in
the same time, and that cause and effect may be simultaneous. For
example, there is heat in a room, which does not exist in the open air.
I look about for the cause, and find it to be the fire, Now the fire as
the cause is simultaneous with its effect, the heat of the room. In
this case, then, there is no succession as regards time, between cause
and effect, but they are simultaneous; and still the law holds good.
The greater part of operating causes in nature are simultaneous with
their effects, and the succession in time of the latter is produced
only because the cause cannot achieve the total of its effect in one
moment. But at the moment when the effect first arises, it is always
simultaneous with the causality of its cause, because, if the cause had
but a moment before ceased to be, the effect could not have arisen.
Here it must be specially remembered that we must consider the order of
time and not the lapse thereof. The relation remains, even though no
time has elapsed. The time between the causality of the cause and its
immediate effect may entirely vanish, and the cause and effect be thus
simultaneous, but the relation of the one to the other remains always
determinable according to time. If, for example, I consider a leaden
ball, which lies upon a cushion and makes a hollow in it, as a cause,
then it is simultaneous with the effect. But I distinguish the two
through the relation of time of the dynamical connection of both. For
if I lay the ball upon the cushion, then the hollow follows upon the
before smooth surface; but supposing the cushion has, from some cause
or another, a hollow, there does not thereupon follow a leaden ball.
Thus, the law of succession of time is in all instances the only
empirical criterion of effect in relation to the causality of the
antecedent cause. The glass is the cause of the rising of the water
above its horizontal surface, although the two phenomena are
contemporaneous. For, as soon as I draw some water with the glass from
a larger vessel, an effect follows thereupon, namely, the change of the
horizontal state which the water had in the large vessel into a
concave, which it assumes in the glass.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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