official appointment in New South Wales. At present, there exists a mere wish, for the Colonial Secretary has not written; indeed, the place is not yet vacant and the wisher has not yet taken his degree. Still, it comes back constantly into the man's thoughts; and his will is drawn towards the idea. It is in its remote first act. But our supposed friend has taken his degree, the place is now vacant,— the Colonial Secretary has written to offer him the appointment. It remains with him to determine whether he will accept or not. He consults his friends. He ponders over the reasons for and against. The will is now in its proximate first act. It is in this stage of the process, patent to self-consciousness, that free-will makes itself known and felt. At length, the choice is made and the appointment accepted. The will has reached its second act.

III. COMPARISON BETWEEN PRINCIPIANT AND CAUSE.

From all that has been said in this and the preceding Article it will appear, that there is a real distinction between principiant and Cause; and that the former is of wider periphery than the latter. For, i. Not every principiant is causal; though every Cause is a principiant. There are principiants in time, order, series, cognition; but they are not univocally Causes. ii. When principiants are causal, they are not all essentially and positively causal. Such as possess these properties, are ipso facto Causes. Thus, certain privations are principiants, not Causes. When, as sometimes happens, they are included among Causes, the word is used analogically. iii. A principiant may communicate to another, existing essence which is numerically its own; in which case that existing essence is not caused. If a principiant produces in another an existing essence numerically distinct from its own, it is identified with Cause. Hence, Cause is a sort of species under principiant. This latter, accordingly, has been given as the quasi genus of Cause in the description of it which heads this Article.

IV. THE RELATION OF CAUSE TO THE CATEGORIES.

Cause is a true Transcendental; for causality is, so to say, a property of all Being. Every real entity is a Cause; and every real entity, with one Exception, is in turn an Effect. It is a pregnant remark of the Angelic Doctor, that 'everything which exists must be either a cause or caused; otherwise, they (?) would

not have an order relatively to other things. On causality, therefore, depends in great measure the unification of entities and consequent unity of scientific cognition. As St. Thomas remarks elsewhere, If diverse entities are in any way united, there is necessarily some cause for this union. For diverse entities are not united of themselves. Hence it is that, whenever a certain unity is discovered in things diverse, those diverse unities must receive such unity from some one cause; as, for instance, diverse heated bodies receive their heat from fire 2.' Hence, the middle term of demonstration is one or other of the causes of the subject and attribute; and science is defined to be the certain cognition of things by their causes.

In considering the nature of a Cause, there are three problems which demand our attention: A. What is the nature of a Cause considered with reference to its Effect? B. What is the determinate concept of an Effect? C. What is that precisely, which is termed the influx or causality of a Cause?

A.

WHAT IS THE NATURE OF A CAUSE CONSIDERED WITH REFERENCE TO ITS EFFECT?

PROPOSITION CXXXI.

Between a Cause and its Effect there exists a relation at least not-mutual.

PROLEGOMENON.

This is not the place to enter upon an examination touching the nature of relation or its different kinds. But it will be necessary to explain, however briefly, the difference between a mutual and not-mutual relation. A mutual relation is that wherein there is a real foundation for the relation in each of the two terms; as, for instance, in the relation between father and son or between king and subject. A not-mutual relation is one wherein the foundation.

16 'Quidquid est in rebus oportet quod causa vel causatum sit; alioquin ad alia ordinem non haberent,' (haberet ?). Cg. L. III, co. 107, 2o.

2 Si enim diversa in aliquo uniantur, necesse est hujus unionis causam esse aliquam; non enim diversa secundum se uniuntur. Et inde est quod quandocunque in diversis invenitur aliquid unum, oportet quod illa diversa illud unum ab aliqua una causa recipiant; sicut diversa corpora calida habent calorem ab igne.' 10 LXV, 1, c.

is real in one term only, while it is purely logical in the other. Such is the relation between science, subjectively understood, and its object: or, again, that between the Creator and His creature. There is a real foundation in science and in the creature; the foundation of the relation is purely conceptual in the object of science, as also in the Creator.

This Proposition follows as a Corollary from the hundred and twenty-eighth Proposition, in the which it is declared that between every principiant and its principiate there intercedes a true relation. For every cause is a principiant. Therefore, that which is a property of the latter, will be likewise a property of the former.

The restrictive clause, at least not-mutual, has been added; because, in the instance of some causes, notably of the First Cause, a real foundation of the acknowledged relation is only discoverable in the Effect.

PROPOSITION CXXXII.

Not only is the relation of the Cause really distinguished from the relation which is in the Effect; but in like manner the absolute entity of the Cause is really distinguished from the absolute entity of the Effect.

I. THE FIRST MEMBER of the Proposition, wherein it is affirmed that the relation in the Cause is really distinguished from the relation in the Effect, is plainly deducible from the Prolegomena touching the nature of a Cause. For it is of the essence of a Cause to communicate; while it is of the essence of an Effect to receive. The former is naturally independent in its entity of the latter; while the latter is as naturally dependent in its entity on the former. Now, the foundation of relation in the Cause is this communicating to its Effect; and the foundation of the relation in the Effect is this passive receiving from, or dependence on, the Cause. But these two are really distinguished from each other. Therefore, etc.

II. THE SECOND MEMBER, which affirms that the absolute entity of the Cause is really distinguished from the absolute entity of the Effect, is thus declared: i. From induction of experience. For in all the instances of entities which are accounted to be Causes by the general verdict of common sense, it is invariably found that the existing essence of the Cause is numerically distinct from that of the Effect, as such. These last conditionating words have been added, because there is nothing to prevent the same being from existing at once

as Cause and Effect; but then, if in the same order of causality, it must be Cause in relation to one entity and Effect in relation to another. In no case, however, can a thing be Cause or Effect to itself. ii. It follows from the descriptive definition given of a Cause. For Cause is declared to be a principiant which communicates being to another entity, or which produces an existing essence other than its own. And this means really other.

PROPOSITION CXXXIII.

A Cause is prior in order of nature, but not necessarily in order of time, to its Effect.

I. THE FIRST MEMBER of this Proposition, viz. that a Cause is prior in order of nature to its Effect, follows from the concept of Cause, interpreted by the explanation of priority of nature given in the Prolegomenon to the hundred and thirtieth Proposition. For, if a Cause is a principiant that communicates being to an entity distinct from itself, or again, is a principiant that produces an existing essence distinct from its own; it is plain that the Effect, or that which has been caused, depended for its being,-its existing essence, on the Cause which originally communicated it. But the Cause neither was nor is in any wise, as cause, dependent on its Effect. Therefore, the Cause is, and must be, prior in order of nature to its Effect.

II. THE SECOND MEMBER, in which it is affirmed that the Cause is not necessarily prior in order of time to the Effect, needs a more elaborate declaration. First of all, then, it is commended to us by experience. For there is no one who doubts that illumination is the effect of light; yet it is no less evident that the two are synchronous. Similarly, action is the cause of passion (i.e. of that which is received in the entity that suffers); yet the passion is simultaneous, must be simultaneous, with the action. Thus, for instance, the impulsion given to a ball by the cue is simultaneous with the reception of that impulse by the ball. But here occurs a difficulty. For, while the Angelic Doctor gives the seal of his authority to the doctrine maintained in this member of the Thesis, he seems at first sight to dissent from its application in particular to the last-mentioned instances. Let us listen to what he says. 'Since the Principiant of motion,' these are his words, 'necessarily

precedes the term in duration of time, (which must needs be on account of the succession of motion), and since there cannot be a principiant, or commencement, of motion without a Cause that operates to produce it; it needs must be that the motive Cause in the production of anything should precede in duration of time that which is produced by it. Wherefore, that which proceeds from anything without motion, simultaneously endures with that from which it proceeds; as, for instance, brightness in fire or in the sun. For brightness proceeds all at once, and not successively, from a lucid body; since illumination is not motion, but the term of motion. Now, the reasoning of St. Thomas is, as usual, sufficiently clear. In motion there is succession; consequently, the term of motion,- that is to say, the point at which it is arrested,— is posterior in order of time to the beginning of the motion, or point at which it started. But, if the beginning of motion is prior in order of time to the term; à fortiori the moving cause must be, in the same order, prior to the term. Where, however, there is no motion in the procession of Effect from Cause, there is no intrinsic necessity for either priority or posteriority of time; because there is no succession. And this is the à priori argument in favour of this Member of the Thesis. There is no reason either from the nature of causal influx, or from the essence of a Cause, or from that of an Effect, why an Effect should not be synchronous with its Cause. Not from the nature of causal influx; because not all causality is successive: Not from the essence of a Cause; for there is nothing repugnant in the concept that an entity should exercise causal action at the same moment in which it exists outside its Causes: Lastly, not from the essence of an Effect, whose dependence is fully satisfied by that priority of nature which is the inalienable prerogative of its Cause.

Nevertheless, the above teaching of St. Thomas seems at all events to cast a doubt upon the relevancy of some of the examples which have been adduced. For, in a great number of cases derived from action and passion,-notably in the instance of the cue and the billiard-ball,-the causality is one of motion and successive. They

1 Cum autem principium motus de necessitate terminum motus duratione praecedat, quod necesse est propter motus successionem, nec possit esse motus principium vel initium sine causa ad producendum movente; necesse est ut causa movens ad aliquid producendum praecedat duratione id quod ab ea producitur. Unde quod ab aliquo sine motu procedit, simul est duratione cum eo a quo procedit, sicut splendor in igne vel in sole. Nam splendor subito et non successive a corpore lucido procedit, cum illuminatio non sit motus, sed terminus motus.' Po. Q. III, a 13, c.