Efficient cause

“ Proper accidents, however, inasmuch as they of necessity exist simultaneously with the substances to which they belong, and flow from these substances by a necessity of the very essence of these latter, cannot be said to have any efficient causes other than those which contribute by their efficiency to the substantial changes by which these substances are brought into actual existence ”

“ Hence I conceive it is that when we see two events constantly conjoined, we are led to associate the idea of causation or efficiency with the former, and to refer to it that power or energy by which the change is produced; in consequence of which association we come to consider philosophy as the knowledge of efficient causes, and lose sight of the operation of mind in producing the phenomena of nature. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is impossible to tabulate in so many words the effect which this habit has on efficiency and temperament. We read and hear a great deal to-day about efficiency. Now, an individual's efficiency is an expression of that individual's health standard or capacity. To be 100 per cent. efficient one must enjoy good health. ”

“ The relation of cause and effect, as commonly conceived by the vulgar and as commonly employed by the scientist, is a putative relation between phenomena which can not be said to stand in any observed relation of efficiency to one another. Efficiency, as understood in this connection, is not a fact of observation, but of imputation; and efficiency, performance of work, is the substance of the causal relation as that concept is universally employed in modern science. ”

“ It is the belief of the advocates of scientific management that if we thus make the individual efficient, his productive capacity will be raised twenty-five or fifty per cent., or even sometimes doubled. ”

“ The struggle for abundance begets the struggle for efficiency. Ideas and standards of efficiency appear. The efficient find each other out. They like each other and each other's ways. They dislike the inefficient, and begin in all possible ways to make life unpleasant for them. ”

“ We must therefore make the distinction and say, that whilst no primary agent or prime efficient produces effects beyond its powers, every instrumental agent may exceed its own proper powers in action; for it acts not merely by its own virtue but by the virtue of a superior efficient.... ”

“ We shall next advert to a rather more intricate operation of the same principle, namely, when the cause does not merely continue in action, but undergoes, during the same time, a progressive change in those of its circumstances which contribute to determine the effect. ”

“ Now, while fully accepting the logical definition of cause as the "antecedent or concurrence of antecedents on which the effect is invariably and unconditionally consequent," we can always single out one dynamical—antecedent the power which does the work—from the aggregate of material conditions under which that power may be distributed and applied. ”

“ By them we learn to distinguish the accidental circumstances from the efficacious causes; and when we find that an effect can be produc’d without the concurrence of any particular circumstance, we conclude that that circumstance makes not a part of the efficacious cause, however frequently conjoin’d with it. ”

“ Here do we find the general remedy for the destructive effects produced by the brusque progress of science, and she herself furnishes this remedy, when, from the hasty and the theoretical, she becomes experimental and builds on the observation of facts and their relations. ”

“ It is the more worth while to trace the genesis of this undue absorption of the energies in work, since it well serves to illustrate the general truth which should be ever present to all legislators and politicians, that the indirect and unforeseen results of any cause affecting a society are frequently, if not habitually, greater and more important than the direct and foreseen results. ”

“ All this talk about 'efficiency' is really part of the same movement, though very few realize it; it's nothing more or less than cutting out guess work and waste—and what else, after all, is our Safety work? ”

“ And I do it to show, in the second place, that when we insist on resolving a verbally-intelligible cause into its actual factors, we get not only a clear solution of the problem before us, but we find that the way is opened to solutions of sundry other problems. ”

“ Before drawing any sweeping conclusion we must consider all the consequences direct and indirect, immediate and remote, political and social as well as economic. Hence the ordinary test—the direct and immediate effect upon productive efficiency—is not a satisfactory one. ”

“ And it means that the effect of different methods of treatment, old or new, for different kinds of men and of causes, must be studied, experimented, and compared. Only in this way can accurate knowledge be reached, and new efficient measures be adopted. ”

“ Now, if the vital forces of nature which give an advantage to the element of time be the cause of interest, it would seem to follow that this maximum rate of interest would be determined by the strength of these forces and the extent to which they are engaged in production. ”

“ If casual or irregular disturbing causes exist, we should probably require many such cycles of results to render their effect inappreciable. We obtain the desired result by taking the mean of all the367 observations in which a cause acts positively, and the mean of all in which it acts negatively. ”

“ In point of fact, the people duplicate the doing, when they make the lightning lighten, that is a "doing-doing"; they make the same phenomenon first a cause, and then, secondly, the effect of that cause. The scientists fail to improve matters when they say, "Force moves, force causes," and so on. ”

“ The fact is, there are only two qualities in the world: efficiency and inefficiency, and only two sorts of people: the efficient and the inefficient. ”

“ But to this I reply, that in those cases of direct Causation to which the maxim applies, the Cause and Effect are not successive, but simultaneous. If I press against some obstacle, the obstacle resists and returns the pressure at the instant it is exerted, not after any interval of time, however small. The common maxim, that the effect follows the cause, has arisen from the practice of considering, as examples of cause and effect, not instantaneous forces or causes, and the instantaneous changes which they produce ”

“ But, as a consequence of that law of natural causality which tells us that every effect is always the resultant of numerous concurrent causes and not of one cause alone, and that every effect becomes in its turn a cause of other phenomena, it is necessary to amend and complete the too rigid form that has been given to this true idea. ”

“ As we proceed further and further from the time at which alternative actions are open to us, the events of which either action would be part cause become increasingly dependent on those other circumstances, which are the same, whichever action we adopt. The effects of any individual action seem, after a sufficient space of time, to be found only in trifling modifications spread over a very wide area, whereas its immediate effects consist in some prominent modification of a comparatively narrow area. ”

“ In the efforts of scientists to seek out and establish new methods, new principles, the success of an experiment is to be determined, I suppose, by the test, Will it work? Does it yield effective results? Similarly, in economics, the science of mankind in its production, distribution and consumption of material things, the test of utility and efficiency is, Will it pay? that being the standard of workableness in the application of that science. ”

“ If so little can be done by the experimental method to determine the conditions of an effect of many combined causes, in the case of medical science, still less is this method applicable to a class of phenomena, more complicated than even those of physiology, the phenomena of politics and history. There, Plurality of Causes exists in almost boundless excess, and the effects are, for the most part, inextricably interwoven with one another. ”

“ As the agents used in connection with a fixed amount of any other agent (for mechanical, chemical, physiological, psychological, and other purposes) increase, their objective effectiveness after a given point decreases. Objective or technical effectiveness means effectiveness independent of the thought or estimate of men. It is not the effectiveness to produce a feeling in men, but to produce results on the material world. In a mechanism, if one part is increased without increasing the other parts, a point is reached where it does not add to the result. ”

“ The mechanism of management must not be mistaken for its essence, or underlying philosophy. Precisely the same mechanism will in one case produce disastrous results and in another the most beneficent. The same mechanism which will produce the finest results when made to serve the underlying principles of scientific management, will lead to failure and disaster if accompanied by the wrong spirit in those who are using it. Hundreds of people have already mistaken the mechanism of this system for its essence. ”

“ It will be noticed that my formula contains two requirements: it demands a maximum of efficiency and a minimum of effort. Efficiency means expressiveness, and effort means bodily and mental labour, and thus the formula is simply one of modern energetics. But unfortunately we are in possession of no method by which to measure either expressiveness or effort exactly, and in cases of conflict it may be difficult to decide to which of the two sides we are to attach the greater importance, how great a surplus of efficiency is required to counterbalance a surplus of exertion, or inversely. ”

“ The mere rusting, for example, of some small part of a great machine, often suffices entirely to prevent the effect which ought to result from the joint action of all the parts. The law of the effect of a combination of causes is always subject to the whole of the negative conditions which attach to the action of all the causes severally. ”

“ From a given quantity of human power and intellect, to produce the least possible result, is a problem solved, nearly with mathematical precision, by the present methods of the nation’s economical procedure. ”

“ America’s thought could be translated into the word efficiency. Yes, we might almost say she worships efficiency. If, then, efficiency is to be the goal, what are the means to develop it? Efficiency depends chiefly upon good health, and to maintain this we must first consider in the scheme of education the physical aids—food, air, water, clothing and shelter, exercise and rest—and with this goal in view must come also recreation, play or amusement, and beauty to develop the mental and the spiritual. ”

“ Still, the effort shows the grandeur and range of the man's mind; and though little was effected, the method was right. So, too, in one of his essays on the Power of Producing Heat, he says, ‘In the course of a variety of experiments on animals and vegetables, I have frequently observed that the result of experiments in the one has explained the economy of the other, and pointed out some principle common to both.’ Hunter's Works, vol. ”

“ The experimental method is certainly not the only one which can contribute to reforms in industrial life and the reinforcement of industrial efficiency, but all signs indicate that the future will find it the most productive and most reliable. ”

“ But it certainly does not seem to be a measure insuperably difficult, to preserve whatever is really good in the present system, and even to remedy some of its defects, without departing from the path of experience, and resorting to improvements of theory and experiment. ”

“ One hears nowadays a vast amount of chatter about efficiency—that magic word—and social organisation, and there is no doubt a huge expenditure of energy upon these things and a widespread desire to rush about and make showy and startling changes. ”

“ Instead of speaking of the strenuous life or the simple life, let us have as a doctrine 'the effective life.'
"What we need is not merely a man who acts, but one who does; that is, one who will do what he has to do regardless of intervening obstacles. Efficiency and effectiveness are the key-notes of success in actual life. ”

“ But I believe that the practical principle in which safety resides, the ideal to be kept in view, the standard by which to test all arrangements intended for overcoming the difficulty, may be conveyed in these words: the greatest dissemination of power consistent with efficiency ”

“ If we now take the whole of the instances which occur within a sufficiently large field to exhaust all the combinations of these special influences, or, in other words, to eliminate chance; and if all these instances have occurred within such narrow limits of time, that no material change can have taken place in the general influences constituting the state of civilization of the country; we may be certain, that if human actions are governed by invariable laws, the aggregate result will be something like a constant quantity. ”