extensive subject; and I am persuaded that they have arisen, to a great extent, from the ambiguity of the word CAUSE, as any one may see by even re-perusing the preceding page. I say not this, in order to

mimic the style of the whole crowd of writers, who, from the days of Locke to our own, have delighted in such complaints; much less to shelter myself, by casting the blame of my own obscurity of thought, upon the unavoidable defects of language-but because I am most anxious to convey truth in words not to be misunderstood; and to do this, I must first hunt out established sophistry from its wordy lurking-places.

I suppose it will not be denied that words are meant to convey ideas; if, then, the same word be employed to signify several distinct ideas, all clearness of conception will become impossible. That this has introduced much of the doubt and dispute, concerning the subject which we are about to examine, will not I think need much proof. It is a fact of which every one may judge.

A boy at school, in the ordinary routine of his studies, works the first problem in Euclid. The result of his operations is placed before us,-the Equilateral Triangle. If it be now asked, 'What is the cause of this effect?--this triangle?'-It is probable, that no two persons would give the same answer. One might say, that the two intersecting circles, &c., are the cause; and it would be true. Another might declare, the rule, pencil, and compasses, to be the cause; a third might consider the boy himself as the only real cause.

Now observe; these three persons would use the word Cause in three senses: they would mean three essentially different things, though they would employ one and the same term. The first would assign the cause, or REASON, in the nature of things, from which the triangle resulted; the second would speak of the cause, or INSTRUMENT; and the third, of the cause, or AGENT,- the " Efficient Cause" of the schoolmen.

But this is not all: so loosely has this word come to be used, that, according to some, every motive that influenced the mind of the boy might be called a remote "cause" of the triangle: as, the fear of punishment, -the example of others-the desire of knowledge -emulation, and the like. And still farther; every use to which the triangle might afterwards be put, was a "cause" why it should be made. Thus the second problem might be fantastically called a cause for the first and so, for this simple triangle, causes might be assigned almost ad infinitum.

Nor can it be said, that any one may immediately perceive in what sense a word is used, by observing the general drift and bearing of the sentence in which it occurs. Experience proves, that, as latitude in the signification of words gives rise to sophisms in philosophy, so men's ears, by this colloquial usage, become accustomed to inaccuracy, and many an error escapes detection. Thus a fallacy, somewhat similar to the following, is by no means uncom mon for the sake of exposing its weakness, I will exhibit it in the syllogistic form of the logicians.

Major.-The cause of any thing is accountable for it.

Minor.-Motives are the cause of human action. Conclusion.-Therefore the motives (and not the man) are accountable.

It may be a matter of wonder with some, whether such a syllogism ever satisfied any one; and yet such is but the real statement of the common-place objection of the "Free Thinker"-" Why am I accountable for actions which are caused by motives beyond my control?" The objection, such as it is, rests on the evident truth,-that no man is accountable for that of which he is not the cause. But the fault of the argument consists in an ambiguous middle term. The word Cause is used in the major premiss, to signify a real, efficient cause; otherwise, no one would admit that proposition. In the minor, it signifies the occasion, or reason of an action. Now, if a man were told that he was not accountable for an action, "if he had any reason for it," he would suspect his informant for a fool rather than a logician. Yet such is the meaning, if it has any, of this objection against man's accountability. It rests on the ambiguity of the word Cause.

See Sect. 2. on the ambiguity of the word Motive.

2 The distinction between real and nominal causes is easily forgotten; and, yet, that there is a distinction, may plainly be seen. Thus a real cause may justly be the subject of praise or blame, as all men admit: but though an instrument may sometimes be called a cause, would it not be absurd, morally to praise or blame it? Or if, in common life, a man should say that he disliked sweet things, would it not be unfair for any one to declare, thereupon, that he abhorred music; which, by analogy, is sometimes called sweet?

It seems that, with this word, the world (whether properly or improperly) has been accustomed to connect the idea of EFFICIENCY; and thus, through pure inadvertency, a writer may use it in the premises of an argument in its secondary sense; and yet, in the conclusion, assume for it a higher meaning.

The ambiguity of which we are speaking, did not escape the observation of the ancient philosophers, who carefully distinguished between several sorts of Causes.1 Plato, in the Timæus, makes a two-fold division of Causes, into the necessary, and the divine, which answer to the modern terms, natural and supernatural; under the latter of which, all intellect would be classed. 2 It is observable that with the Greeks the words airia and dex" were frequently used as synonymous, so that the exact idea of a Cause according to them was, a First principle, a beginning. Thus in the Ethics of Aristotle, for example, the same idea is conveyed by the two phrases “ ᾧ ἡ ἀρχη ἐξωθεν ” and “ ὁποτ'αν ἡ αἴτια ἐν τοις ἐκτος.” 3 But this strict meaning of the word Cause was, by no means, universally preserved among them, any more than among us. They sometimes, for instance, would use that word to designate any event which was antecedent to another. And this, as I conceive, explains the meaning of Plato in the

the

As the obvious the & vena, &c. of the Peripatetics. Plato, it seems, elsewhere gives this division of causes; "id ex quo"-"id a quo”—“id quo"-"id ad quod" and "id propter quod."-See Seneca, Epist. 65.

Ethics ad Nic. b. 3; C. I.

Parmenides, that throughout all nature one thing is for ever generating some other thing; that is to say-Almost every thing is, in its turn, an άpx", a beginning, a cause, to something else, though, in strict truth, there is but ONE Absolute Eternal Cause-το Εν.

The loose and vague signification of this word was not of so mischievous a tendency among the ancients, as it is among us, because they took pains to avoid misconception, by scholastic definition. The four-fold division of Causes, of the Peripatetics, was exceedingly useful, in this respect, however objectionable in others. They perceived that there were at least four essentially different ideas expressed by the one word Cause, and they prevented the confusion of these ideas by introducing those distinctions which have received the scholastic names of Material, Formal, Efficient, and Final Causes." A mere antecedent event, or an instrument, according to them would be a Material Cause; a law of nature (which is an abstraction formed by the mind from the facts of nature) would be a Formal Cause; a living agent

Thus too the doctrine of Plato, that external nature has no absolute existence, in the highest sense of the word, but is ever in a state of change (which is but another version of the notion of Heraclitus, of a "perpetual flux ") intends amongst other things to teach, The constant procession of events from causes; and this, in the opinion of Taylor, the modern Platonist, was the whole meaning of the ancient doctrine of the continuous generation of things.'

• Dr. Reid seems strangely to deny that we have any modern idea correspondent to Material and Formal Causes !-Essays on Act. Powers I. Ch. 6 p. 460.