On causation : with a chapter on belief / by Charles A. Mercier.

  • Mercier, Charles Arthur, 1852-1919.
Date:
1916
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: On causation : with a chapter on belief / by Charles A. Mercier. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    define or explain satisfactorily. They can only be described, and even description is not always easy or always satisfactory. Matter cannot be described except in terms of force, nor force except in terms of matter. It is manifest that defining and explaining more complicated notions in terms of simpler notions cannot be continued indefinitely. The process reaches its natural limit when at last we come to notions of primitive simplicity, just as the chemical analysis of substances reaches its natural limit when we have at last reduced them to elements. The notion of causation is almost elementary. Cause and effect, like matter and force, are terms that everyone under¬ stands more or less vaguely, more or less precisely, but that it is difficult to express more simply for want of simpler terms. At any rate it has been found impracticable hitherto to ex¬ press them, for every effort that has been made to do so has resulted in an expression that is either more obscure than cause and effect themselves, or that does not truly express what they mean. Dr. Fowler says ‘ That a cause is ... ; that every event has a cause ; that the same cause is always attended by the same effect ; are obviously three different propositions, and still there are few writers who in their treatment of the ques¬ tion of causation have not more or less confounded them.’ This is quite true, and he might have added a fourth—we derive our notion of causation from ... or the origin of our notion of causation is . . . It is this fourth proposition that is the main theme of Hume’s discussion, and he arrived at the conclusion, which is no doubt correct, that we get our notion of causation from witnessing repeated instances of it—that, in fact, as we should say now, it is a generalisation from many individual experi¬ ences. So far no doubt he was right; but he went on to assume, and his whole argument rests upon the assumption, that because the notion of causation is a generalisation from repeated experiences, therefore causation itself does not exist in isolated or single instances, and, in fact, does not exist at all, but is a mental fiction, without any corresponding relation in fact. The common sense doctrine that Hume undertook to de-