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'''[[w:Causality|Causality]]''' is the relationship between an event (the cause) and a second event (the effect), where the second event is understood as a consequence of the first. Though the causes and effects are typically related to changes or event, candidates include objects, processes, properties, variables, facts, and states of affairs; characterizing the causal relationship can be the subject of much debate. The philosophical treatment of causality extends over millennia. In the Western philosophical tradition, discussion stretches back at least to Aristotle, and the topic remains a staple in contemporary philosophy.
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[[File:E innga kyo.jpg|thumb|320px|''The Illustrated Sutra of Cause and Effect''. 8th century, Japan]]
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'''[[w:Causality|Causality]]''' is the relationship between an event (the cause) and a second event (the effect), where the second event is understood as a consequence of the first. The philosophical treatment of causality extends over millennia, stretches back at least to [[Aristotle]].
==Sourced==
==Sourced==
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===''Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations''===
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=== Ancient history ===
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:Quotes reported in ''Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations'' (1922), p. 91.
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* ''Cause'' means
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*:(a) in one sense, that as the result of whose presence something comes into being—e.g., the bronze of a statue and the silver of a cup, and the classes which contain these [i.e., the '''material cause'''];
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* To all facts there are laws,
The effect has its cause, and I mount to the cause.
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*:(b) in another sense, the form or pattern; that is, the essential formula and the classes which contain it—e.g. the ratio 2:1 and number in general is the cause of the octave—and the parts of the formula [i.e., the '''formal cause'''].
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** [[Owen Meredith]] (Lord Lytton), ''Lucile'' (1860), Part II, Canto III, Stanza 8.
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*:(c) The source of the first beginning of change or rest; e.g. the man who plans is a cause, and the father is the cause of the child, and in general that which produces is the cause of that which is produced, and that which changes of that which is changed [i.e., the '''efficient cause'''].
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*:(d) The same as "end"; i.e. the final cause; e.g., as the "end" of walking is health. For why does a man walk? "To be healthy," we say, and by saying this we consider that we have supplied the cause [the '''final cause'''].
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*:(e) All those means towards the end which arise at the instigation of something else, as, e.g., fat-reducing, purging, drugs and instruments are causes of health; for they all have the end as their object, although they differ from each other as being some instruments, others actions [i.e., necessary conditions].
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** [[Aristotle]] Metaphysics, Book 5, section 1013a, translated by Hugh Tredennick ([http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0052%3Abook%3D5%3Asection%3D1013a online])
* ''Causa latet: vis est notissima.''
* ''Causa latet: vis est notissima.''
** The cause is hidden, but the result is known.
** The cause is hidden, but the result is known.
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** [[Ovid]], ''Metamorphoses'', IV. 287.
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** [[Ovid]], ''Metamorphoses'', IV. 287. in ''Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations'' (1922), p. 91.
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* ''Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas.''
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** Happy the man who has been able to learn the causes of things.
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** [[Virgil]], ''Georgics'' (c. 29 BC), II, 490. in ''Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations'' (1922), p. 91.
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=== Modern history, until 20th century ===
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* This deficiency in our ideas is not, indeed, perceived in common life, nor are we sensible, that in the most usual conjunctions of cause and effect we are as ignorant of the ultimate principle, which binds them together, as in the most unusual and extraordinary.
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** [[David Hume]] (1739-40) ''A Treatise of Human Nature''. Part 4 Of the sceptical and other systems of philosophy, Sect. 7 Conclusion of this book
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* If reason (I mean abstract reason, derived from inquiries a priori) be not alike mute with regard to all questions concerning cause and effect, this sentence at least it will venture to pronounce, That a mental world, or universe of ideas, requires a cause as much, as does a material world, or universe of objects; and, if similar in its arrangement, must require a similar cause. For what is there in this subject, which should occasion a different conclusion or inference? In an abstract view, they are entirely alike; and no difficulty attends the one supposition, which is not common to both of them.
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** [[David Hume]] (1779) ''Dialogues concerning Natural Religion''. Philo to Cleanthes, Part IV
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* To all facts there are laws,
The effect has its cause, and I mount to the cause.
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** [[Owen Meredith]] (Lord Lytton), ''Lucile'' (1860), Part II, Canto III, Stanza 8. in ''Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations'' (1922), p. 91.
* Ask you what provocation I have had?
The strong antipathy of good to bad.
* Ask you what provocation I have had?
The strong antipathy of good to bad.
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** [[Alexander Pope]], ''Epilogue to Satires'', Dialogue 2, line 205.
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** [[Alexander Pope]] (1688–1744), ''Epilogue to Satires'', Dialogue 2, line 205. in ''Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations'' (1922), p. 91.
* Your cause doth strike my heart.
* Your cause doth strike my heart.
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** [[William Shakespeare]], ''[[Cymbeline]]'' (1611), Act I, scene 6, line 118.
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** [[William Shakespeare]], ''[[Cymbeline]]'' (1611), Act I, scene 6, line 118. in ''Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations'' (1922), p. 91.
* Find out the cause of this effect,
Or rather say, the cause of this defect,
For this effect defective comes by cause.
* Find out the cause of this effect,
Or rather say, the cause of this defect,
For this effect defective comes by cause.
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** [[William Shakespeare]], ''[[Hamlet]]'' (1600-02), Act II, scene 2, line 101.
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** [[William Shakespeare]], ''[[Hamlet]]'' (1600-02), Act II, scene 2, line 101. in ''Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations'' (1922), p. 91.
* God befriend us, as our cause is just!
* God befriend us, as our cause is just!
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** [[William Shakespeare]], [[Henry IV, Part 1|''Henry IV'', Part I]] (c. 1597), Act V, scene 1, line 120.
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** [[William Shakespeare]], [[Henry IV, Part 1|''Henry IV'', Part I]] (c. 1597), Act V, scene 1, line 120. in ''Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations'' (1922), p. 91.
* Mine's not an idle cause.
* Mine's not an idle cause.
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** [[William Shakespeare]], ''[[Othello]]'' (c. 1603), Act I, scene 2, line 95.
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** [[William Shakespeare]], ''[[Othello]]'' (c. 1603), Act I, scene 2, line 95. in ''Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations'' (1922), p. 91.
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* ''Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas.''
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=== 20th century ===
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** Happy the man who has been able to learn the causes of things.
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* Quantum mechanics is certainly imposing. But an inner voice tells me that it is not yet the real thing. The theory says a lot, but does not really bring us any closer to the secret of the "old one." I, at any rate, am convinced that ''He'' does not throw dice.
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** [[Virgil]], ''Georgics'' (c. 29 BC), II, 490.
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** [[Albert Einstein]] (1926) in letter to [[w:Max Born|Max Born]] (4 December 1926); ''The Born-Einstein Letters'' (translated by Irene Born) (Walker and Company, New York, 1971)
ISBN 0-8027-0326-7.
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** Einstein himself used variants of this quote at other times. For example, in a 1943 conversation with William Hermanns recorded in Hermanns' book ''Einstein and the Poet'', Einstein said: "As I have said so many times, God doesn't play dice with the world." ([http://books.google.com/books?id=QXCyjj6T5ZUC&lpg=PP1&pg=PA58#v=onepage&q&f=false p. 58])
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* Principle of causality is fundamental to human thinking, and it has been observed experimentally that this assumption leads to complex hypothesis formation by human subjects attempting to solve comparatively simple problems involving a causal randomly generated events
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** [[Brian R. Gaines]] (1976) "[http://www.academia.edu/1282629/On_the_complexity_of_causal_models On the Complexity of Causal Models]" in: ''International Journal of General Systems'', 1977.
==External links==
==External links==