ABSTRACT
Cause is both a commonplace of ordinary life, and a mystery of the universe. On the one hand, we behave every day as though we were absolutely convinced of the existence of causal laws - rules that make things work in ways that we can understand^ and manipulate. On the other hand, it is an exceedingly difficult task; to come up with a definition of causation that will satisfy everybody. The tension between the immediacy of our common sense idea of causation and the remoteness of a good abstract definition is one of the reasons that causation is so endlessly fascinating.
