Chapter V: The World of Things—(2) Change and Causality

§ 1. The conception of things as interacting leads to the two
problems of Change and Causality. The paradoxical
character of change due to the fact that only what is
permanent can change. § 2. Change is succession within
an identity; this identity, like that of Substance, must
be teleological, _i.e._ must be an identity of plan or
end pervading the process of change. § 3. Thus all
change falls under the logical category of Ground and
Consequence, which becomes in its application to
succession in time the Principle of Sufficient Reason. §
4. _Causality._ Cause—in the modern popular and
scientific sense—means the ground of a change when taken
to be completely contained in preceding changes. That
every change has its complete ground in preceding
changes is neither an axiom nor an empirically
ascertained truth, but a postulate suggested by our
practical needs. § 5. In the last resort the postulate
cannot be true; the dependence between events cannot be
one-sided. The real justification for our use of the
postulate is its practical success. § 6. Origin of the
conception of Cause anthropomorphic. § 7. Puzzles about
Causation. (1) _Continuity_. Causation must be
continuous, and yet in a continuous process there can be
no distinction of cause from effect. Cause must be and
yet cannot be _prior_ in time to effect. § 8. (2) _The
indefinite regress_ in causation. § 9. (3) _Plurality of
Causes_. Plurality of Causes is ultimately a logical
contradiction, but in any form in which the causal
postulate is of practical use it must recognise
plurality. § 10. The “necessity” of the causal relation
psychological and subjective. § 11. Immanent and
Transeunt Causality: Consistent Pluralism must deny
transeunt Causation; but cannot do so successfully. §
12. Both transeunt and immanent Causality are ultimately
appearance 158

BOOK III

COSMOLOGY—THE INTERPRETATION OF NATURE

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTORY

§ 1. Distinction between the experimental sciences and a
Philosophy of Nature and Mind. The former concerned with
the description, the latter with the interpretation of
facts. § 2. Cosmology is the critical examination of the
special characteristics of the physical order. Its main
problems are: (1) The problem of the nature of Material
Existence; (2) problem of the justification of the
concept of the Mechanical Uniformity of Nature; (3)
problems of Space and Time; (4) problem of the
Significance of Evolution; (5) problem of the Place of
descriptive Physical Science in the system of Human
Knowledge 191