Page:Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion volume 3.djvu/333

 this latter characteristic belongs to an infinitely deeper and more developed form of thought than the abstract unity of Being, or the One. This conception has been sufficiently explained. Causa Sui is a very striking expression for that unity, and we may accordingly give some further attention to its elucidation. The relation of cause and effect belongs to the moment of mediation through an Other already referred to, and which we saw in necessity, and is its definite form. Anything is completely mediated by an Other in so far as this Other is its cause. This is the original thing or fact as absolutely immediate and independent; the effect, on the other hand, is what is posited merely, dependent, and so forth. In the antithesis of Being and Nothing, One and Many, and so on, the characteristics are found existing in such a way as to imply that they are matched with each other in their relation, and yet that they have, as unrelated, a valid independent existence besides. The Positive, the Whole, and so on, is, it is true, related to the Negative, to the parts, and this relation forms part of its essential meaning; but the Positive as well as the Negative, the Whole, the parts, and so on, have in addition an independent existence outside of this relation. But cause and effect have a meaning simply and solely in virtue of their relation. The meaning of the cause does not extend beyond the fact that it has an effect. The stone which falls has the effect of producing an impression on the object upon which it falls. Looked at apart from this effect which it has as a heavy body, it is physically separate and distinct from other equally heavy bodies. Or, to put it otherwise, since it is a cause while it continues to produce this impression, if we, for example, imagine its effect to be transitory, then when it strikes against another body it ceases so far to be a cause, and outside of this relation it is just a stone, which it was before. This idea haunts the popular mind chiefly in so far as it characterises the thing as the