Effect

“ Strike your hands together; they feel warm. The effect becomes a cause instantly, and that cause produces another effect, and the effect another cause; and there could not have been a cause until there was an effect. ”

“ We see the effects of the understanding alone, not the understanding itself, and however various a burning city, cast iron, a burn, and steaming water may be, we recognize that in spite of the difference of effect, the same fire has brought about all these results. ”

“ By farther degrees we learn such a use of the words cause and effect as to call nothing a cause, whose cause, or preceding circumstance, we can see, denominating all such things mere effects, all others causes. ”

“ It is evident, therefore, that mind deserves to be considered as the effect, rather than the cause of motion. The ideas which suggest themselves too are prompted by the circumstances of our situation, these are the elements of thought, and from the various combinations of these our feelings, opinions, and volitions inevitably result. ”

“ Our enumeration commenced with Feelings. These we scrupulously distinguished from the objects which excite them, and from the organs by which they are, or may be supposed to be, conveyed. Feelings are of four sorts: Sensations, Thoughts, Emotions, and Volitions. What are called Perceptions are merely a particular case of Belief, and Belief is a kind of thought. Actions are merely volitions followed by an effect. ”

“ In like manner the effect of every action is measured by the depth of the sentiment from which it proceeds. ”

“ Whether this be imputed to the effect of light, or the breathing influence of a flowery atmosphere, and the tendency of all things to produce their similitudes, there lies beneath the natural fact a moral analogy applicable to ourselves. ”

“ Does a like sympathetic effect proceed from the one influenced? We are not asking whether the influence is more or less intense, but whether the effect is sufficiently powerful to raise the other tower-high above everything in view of new aspects? ”

“ In vain, therefore, should we pretend to determine any single event, or infer any cause or effect, without the assistance of observation and experience. ”

“ The moulding force of the immanent ideas, and of the inner life of things, is, for the race at large, and for certain peoples in particular, continuous, cumulative, massive. True, it takes effect chiefly in the sphere of the subconscious. ”

“ Whatever we see, or feel, or do, whatever action there is anywhere in the universe, while being the effect of past work on the one hand, becomes, on the other, a cause in its turn, and produces its own effect. ”

“ For the mind moves by instincts, associations, premonitions and not by fixed dates or completed processes. Action and reaction will occur simultaneously: or the cause actually be found after the effect. Errors will be resisted before they have been properly promulgated: notions will be first defined long after they are dead. ”

“ All the visible manifestations of human life, then, are effects; and as such, although they may possess a reflex action, they can never be causes, but must remain forever what they are—dead effects, galvanized into life by an enduring and profound cause. ”

“ The thoughtful render will naturally inquire as to the cause of, and reason for, such things, as well as to their natural and legitimate effects, and this may induce an honest, healthful inquiry as to what influences should be brought to bear to make men better, and thus prevent the recurrence of such things as are here detailed. ”

“ And now remains That we find out the cause of this effect, Or rather say, the cause of this defect, For this effect defective comes by cause. ”

“ Of all the things in which we are interested, that is, on which our happiness and misery depend, meaning here by things, both objects and events, the most important by far are the successions of objects; in other words, the effects which they produce. In reality, objects are interesting to us, solely on account of the effects which they produce, either on ourselves, or on other objects.
But an observation of the greatest importance readily occurs; that of any cluster, composing our idea of an object, the effects or consequents depend, in general, more upon one part of it than another. ”

“ What we commonly call natural causes, might, with more propriety, be called natural signs, and what we call effects, the things signified. The causes have no proper efficiency or causality, as far as we know; and all we can certainly affirm, is, that nature hath established a constant conjunction between them and the things called their effects; and hath given to mankind a disposition to observe those connections, to confide in their continuance, and to make use of them for the improvement of our knowledge, and increase of our power. ”

“ I conclude, then, that real effectual causation as an ultimate nature, as a ‘category,’ if you like, of reality, is just what we feel it to be, just that kind of conjunction which our own activity-series reveal. We have the whole butt and being of it in our hands; and the healthy thing [Pg 186] for philosophy is to leave off grubbing underground for what effects effectuation, or what makes action act, and to try to solve the concrete questions of where effectuation in this world is located, of which things are the true causal agents there, and of what the more remote effects consist. ”

“ Since it appears, that the transition from an impression present to the memory or senses to the idea of an object, which we call cause or effect, is founded on past experience, and on our remembrance of their constant conjunction, the next question is, Whether experience produces the idea by means of the understanding or imagination; whether we are determined by reason to make the transition, or by a certain association and relation of perceptions. ”

“ solitude, fasting, and sexual abstinence—but without its being possible to determine with certainty which is cause and which is effect, or IF any relation at all of cause and effect exists there. ”

“ That an analogous course of events, or chain of causes and effects, takes place in morals as in physics: that is to say, in examining those qualities, of the matter composing our own bodies, which we call mind, we can only trace a train of occurrences, in like manner as we do in the external world; that our sensations, thoughts, and emotions, are simply effects following causes, a series of consecutive phenomena, mutually producing and produced. ”

“ Yet the two processes are equally great and far-reaching in their effects, and are like those two of Elaboration and Degeneration which go on side by side for ever in nature, in the animal world; and like darkness and light and heat and cold in the physical world. ”

“ When we inquire what is the meaning of the various effects produced upon our senses—when we ask how there come to be in our consciousness impressions of sounds, of colours, of tastes, and of those various attributes which we ascribe to bodies; we are compelled to regard them as the effects of some cause. We may stop short in the belief that this cause 37is what we call matter. Or we may conclude, as some do, that matter is only a certain mode of manifestation of spirit; which is therefore the true cause. ”

“ The Études des Mœurs will represent social effects, without a single situation of life, or a physiognomy, or a character of man or woman, or a manner of life, or a profession, or a social zone, or a district of France, or anything pertaining to childhood, old age, or maturity, politics, justice, or war, having been forgotten. ”

“ Who is to dictate to nature—what phenomena or qualities can inhere in what substances—what effects may result from what causes? Why should not thought be a property or result of matter, just as well as extension, or hardness, or weight, or digestion, or electricity? The psychologist must show that this cannot be the case, either because the supposition contradicts reason, or because it contradicts experience. ”

“ The influence of the ideas, when they are combined with a state of emotion, generally extends in all directions, affecting the senses, motions and secretions. But even simple ideas, unattended with a disturbed state of the passions, produce most marked organic effects in the body. ”

“ It is astonishing how small a circumstance will excite an idea, and deflect the entire current of our thoughts; and it is equally surprising what great physical and chemical effects are often started by most minute exciting or deflecting conditions ”

“ All natural causes were explained after the analogy of human effort in the intentional production of effects, and the earth and air were peopled with invisible and often malignant spirits as the only recognized agents. ”

“ He gives us a number of chapters on the various forces and factors of the inner life, on the tendency of ideas to persist and to produce motor effects, on judgment, emotion, instinct, will, sympathy, imitation, etc. ”

“ That men might be able to create, value, and know the interests that constitute them, the reaction of the higher spiritual reality to the ideas and acts that express the interests of men has automatically given rise to help which we describe as nervous and other organic changes, Habits are thus formed in the spiritual reality the effects of which on our interest in them we describe as these organic changes. ”

“ And are apt to alter the shapes, or colours, of whatever is represented to us by our Imaginations, whilst we are so affected. Yet this Effect is not so strong, but that business, or intention of Thought, commonly either resists, or diverts, it ”

“ Again, the thoughts or reminiscences, which are effects of our past sensations, resemble those sensations; feelings produce similar feelings by way of sympathy; acts produce similar acts by involuntary or voluntary imitation. With so many appearances in its favor, no wonder if a presumption naturally grew up, that causes must necessarily resemble their effects, and that like could only be produced by like. ”

“ For as we divided natural philosophy in general into the inquiry of causes and productions of effects, so that part which concerneth the inquiry of causes we do subdivide according to the received and sound division of causes. The one part, which is physic, inquireth and handleth the material and efficient causes; and the other, which is metaphysic, handleth the formal and final causes. ”

“ The reason of effects.—Lust and force are the source of all our actions; lust causes voluntary actions, force involuntary ones. ”

“ In this frame of mind it occurred to me to put the question directly to myself: "Suppose that all your objects in life were realized; that all the changes in institutions and opinions which you are looking forward to, could be completely effected at this very instant: would this be a great joy and happiness to you?" And an irrepressible self-consciousness distinctly answered, "No!" ”

“ The reason of effects.—We must keep our thought secret, and judge everything by it, while talking like the people. ”

“ Since therefore 'tis possible for all objects to become causes or effects to each other, it may be proper to fix some general rules, by which we may know when they really are so. ”

“ There is not the slightest reason for believing that what we call the sensible qualities of the object are a type of any thing inherent in itself, or bear any affinity to its own nature. A cause does not, as such, resemble its effects; an east wind is not like the feeling of cold, nor heat like the steam of boiling water. Why then should matter resemble our sensations? ”

“ This dialectic process which consciousness executes on itself—on its knowledge as well as on its object—in the sense that out of it the new and true object arises, is precisely what is termed Experience. ”

“ So that when I speak of cause, and efficient cause, I only mean certain affections of the mind, that cause certain changes in the body; or certain powers and properties in bodies, that work a change in the mind. ”

“ The growth of intellection and self-consciousness reacts powerfully upon the emotional and active side of mind. To Conduct. describe the various sources of feeling and of desire that thus arise—aesthetic, social and religious sentiments, pride, ambition, selfishness, sympathy, &c.—is beyond the scope of systematic psychology, and certainly quite beyond the limits of an article like the present. But at least a general résumé of the characteristics of activity on this highest or rational level is indispensable. ”

“ How these influences of the mind on the body are accomplished is a portion of that larger mystery of the influence of mind, or soul, or principle of life, on the material elements of which our body is composed. ”

“ Under [Pg 132] this heading will be found the large group of articles that answer the question why?, as for example, "Why the Quebec Bridge Collapsed," "Causes of the Strike among the Garment Workers," "Popular Opinion as Affecting Government Action," and other such subjects. In the following analysis of the relation existing between human action as result, and impulse and desire as causes, you will find such an informal presentation of material.
All human activity springs from two sources: impulse and desire. The part played by desire has always been sufficiently recognized. ”

“ Since life is long, repressions accumulate, the mass of existence of feeling and desire tends to become composed entirely of these repressions, layer upon layer, with every interest in the aggregate striving to attain place in the daylight of consciousness. ”

“ But, and this is my reply, they do so by other parts of their nature than those that energize physically. One thought in every developed activity-series is a desire or thought of purpose, and all the other thoughts acquire a feeling tone from their relation of harmony or oppugnancy to this. ”

“ Physical phenomena of every day experience; the alternations of light and darkness, of sunshine and clouds; the changes and oppositions in the outer world, would readily supply an analogy to the moral world. ”

“ By the cognitive element, which is equally necessary with emotions to the existence of a valuable appreciation, I mean merely the actual cognition or consciousness of any or all of an object’s beautiful qualities—that is to say, any or all of those elements in the object which possess any positive beauty. ”