Chapter VI: Causation

"Chidhar, the Prophet ever-young
Thus loosed the bridle of his tongue.

"I journeyed by a goodly Town,
Beset with many a garden fair,
And asked of one who gathered down
Large fruit, 'how long the Town was there
He spoke, nor chose his hand to stay,
'The town has stood for many a day,
And will be here for ever and aye.'

"A thousand years passed by and then
I went the self-same road again.

"No vestige of that Town I traced,--
But one poor swain his horn employed,--
His sheep unconscious browsed and grazed,
I asked 'when was that Town destroyed?'
He spoke, nor would his horn lay by,
'One thing may grow and another die,
But I know nothing of Towns--not I.'

"A thousand years went on and then
I passed the self-same place again.

"There in the deep of waters cast
His nets one lonely fisherman,
And as he drew them up at last
I asked him 'how that Lake began?'
He looked at me and laughed to say,
'The waters spring for ever and aye,
And fish is plenty every day.'

"A thousand years passed by and then
I went the self-same road again.

"I found a country wild and rude,
And, axe in hand, beside a tree,
The Hermit of that Solitude,--
I asked 'how old that Wood might be?'
He spoke, 'I count not time at all,
A tree may rise, a tree may fall,
The Forest overlives us all,'

"A thousand years went on and then
I passed the self-same place again.

"And there a glorious City stood,
And 'mid tumultuous market-cry,
I asked 'Where rose the Town? where Wood
Pasture and Lake forgotten lie?'
They heard me not, and little blame,--
For them the world is as it came,
And all things must be still the same.

"A thousand years shall pass, and then
I mean to try that road again."

Lord Houghton, _after Rückert_.

"What a modern talks of by the name, Forces of Nature, Laws of Nature; and does not figure as a divine thing; not even as one thing at all, but as a set of things, undivine enough,--saleable, curious, good for propelling steam-ships! With our Sciences and Cyclopædias, we are apt to forget the _divineness_, in those laboratories of ours. We ought not to forget it! That once well forgotten, I know not what else were worth remembering."--Carlyle. _Heroes_.

"Two worlds, the one intellectual, the other sensual, were equally given to us from the beginning, and all attempts to deduce them from one principle (except the Deity) have failed."--Von Feuchtersleben.

"What am I? how produced? and for what end?
Whence drew I being? to what period tend?
Am I th' abandon'd orphan of blind chance?
Dropped by wild atoms in disorder'd dance?
Or from an endless chain of causes wrought,
And of unthinking substance, born with thought?
By motion which began without a Cause,
Supremely wise, without design or laws."--Arbuthnot.

"Pouvoir c'est vouloir."--_Guesses at Truth._

"If only once weird Time had rent asunder
The curtain of the Clouds, and shown us Night
Climbing into the awful Infinite
Those stairs whose steps are worlds, above and under,
Glory on glory, wonder upon wonder!...

"Ah! sure the heart of Man, too strongly tried
By Godlike Presences so vast and fair,
Withering with dread, or sick with love's despair,
Had wept for ever, and to Heaven cried,
Or struck with lightnings of delight had died!

"But he, though heir of Immortality,
With mortal dust too feeble for the sight,
Draws thro' a veil God's overwhelming light;
Use arms the Soul--anon there moveth by
A more majestic Angel--and we die!"

Frederick Tennyson.

SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTER VI.

The two last Chapters are intended to be read consecutively, but are formally separated in order to mark the transition of Argument. If this is borne in mind, and the line of thought pursued continuously, there will appear to be little need for further elucidation.

The main object of the present Chapter is to distinguish the physical chain of Sequency from Causation properly so termed. In other words to divide the World, as we see it, into two spheres; the Mechanical and the Personal.

The former is characterized by invariable Sequency. The latter by Causation, and by causal interference with the mechanical chain of antecedent and consequent.

Inferences are drawn from these contrasted facts.

_Analysis._--Causation not explained by any of the empirical sciences. Time accounts for nothing. Explicit statements of scientific men on the subject. "Inquire elsewhere." This is one good reason for the study of Natural Theology.

Only one kind of true Cause known to us by Experience. Distinction between a true Cause and the invariable antecedent of an invariable consequent. Antecedent enters Chain of natural sequency; Cause does not. Cause must account for the several links of Chain, for the connection between those links, and for the entire Chain considered as a Whole and Unity in Nature. This position illustrated and investigated. How grasped by the young mind. Its verification.

Known facts of Causation result in the Unknowable; a condition which attaches to the most certain of all truths. Personality a case in point. Another case that of alterations caused by Volition in chains of Natural Sequency. Common-sense allowances made for this last fact.

Application _à fortiori_ to the Divine Personality. Presumption for miracles; its nature and limits. Intervention does not destroy Order and Unity. Hence we distinguish two possible kinds of Evidence, from,--

1. General Order of World.

2. Occasional variation.

Both leading up to a Supreme causal Personality.