ABSTRACT
To treat proxima causa question. Causes are spoken of as if they were distinct from one another as beads in a row or links in a chain … The chain of causation is a handy expression, but the figure is inadequate. Causation is not a chain, but a net … What does ‘proximate’ here mean …? The cause which is truly proximate is that which is proximate in efficiency. That efficiency may have been preserved although other causes may meantime have sprung up which have yet not destroyed it, or truly impaired it, and it may culminate in a result of which it still remains the real efficient cause to which the event can be ascribed.
