ABSTRACT
This chapter points out first, the main discrepancy in causation, and, in the second place, to exhibit an obstacle coming from time's continuity. It also explains the Law of Causation. In causation one must now consider a fresh effort at combination, and its essence is very simple. The only positive result which has appeared from the effort to justify causation, seems to be the impossibility of isolating the cause or the effect. The separate causes are, therefore, legitimate abstractions, and they contain enough truth to be practically admissible. Causation is therefore not continuous; and so, unfortunately, it is not causation, but mere appearance. The several threads of causation seem, that is, always to imply the action of a background. And this background may, if we are judicious, be irrelevant practically. It may be practically irrelevant, not because it is ever idle, but because often it is identical, and so makes no special difference.
