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dogmatists, it would not be possible for someone to conceive of the
cause, if, at any rate, account is taken of their disagreements and strange
conceptions of the cause, but also given that they have made its existence
undiscoverable because of their disagreement regarding it. 14. For some
say that the cause is a body and some say it is incorporeal. Generally,
according to them, the cause would seem to be that because of whose
activity the effect comes about, for example, the sun or the sun's heat
is the cause of the fact that the wax melts or of the melting of the wax.
And even on this they have disagreed, some saying the cause is the cause
of nouns, for example, 'the melting'; others saying that the cause is cause
of predicates, for example, 'the wax melts'. Therefore, as I just said,
generally, the cause would be that because of whose activity the effect
comes about.
- The majority of them think that some of these causes are sustaining,
some joint causes, and some auxiliary. Sustaining causes are those whose
presence makes the effect present, whose absence brings about the absence
of the effect and whose diminution diminishes the effect (thus they say
that the binding of the halter is the cause of the strangulation); a joint
cause is one which brings to bear a force equal to that of another joint
cause for the effect's existence (thus, they say that each of the oxen
drawing the plow is a cause of the plow's being drawn); an auxiliary
cause is one which brings to bear a little force and so makes easy the
existence of the effect, for example, whenever two men are lifting a heavy
load with difficulty, when a third comes along, his assistance lightens
the load. - Some, however, have said that things present are causes of things
future, so as to be antecedents, for example, intensive exposure to the
sun producing fever. Some reject this, since cause is relative to something
[presently] existing, that is, to the effect and is not able to precede it as
its cause.
We say the following about these problems.
Ch. v Does Anything Cause Anything?
- That cause exists is plausible. How else could increase, diminution,
generation, destruction, change in general, each of the physical and psy-
chical effects, the disposition of the whole cosmos, and all other things
come about, if not according to some cause? If none of these exists by
nature, we will say at least that there is a cause of their appearing to us
other than as they really are. 18. Moreover, if cause did not exist then
everything would come from everything at random. For example, horses
could have come from flies, or elephants from ants; and there would be
severe rains and snow in Egyptian Thebes, while in the south there would