External cause

“ It is clear that when the disturbing action, the cause of disease, works upon the fundamental element, the same causes will produce fundamentally similar effects; when, on the contrary, this action is exercised upon the acquired and special element of each race, the same causes will produce different effects. ”

“ The conditions of every causation are multifarious as we look at them in a regressus of causes or a progressus of effects, and as the mind of the individual can make but one judgment at a time, it may be that the one of the causes or effects which is considered, is in fact a trivial element in the causation, for in all our language we are accustomed to speak of one of the causes as the special cause, for it must be the special one in consideration. ”

“ No two persons—that is to say, human causes—present exactly the same effects. Every fact evolved will differ more or less. And, lastly, every cause is manifested as a unit by its occupation or pervasion of a given space. ”

“ 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 short, we are all, though in different degrees, the subjects of a variety of subtle influences, which, more or less, neutralize each other, and many of which, therefore, we never observe; and frequently when we do observe the effects, we have neither time nor capacity for tracing the cause; and when in more susceptible organisms such effects are manifested, we content ourselves with referring the phenomena to disease or imposture. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Uncertainty of conclusion.
(a) Plurality of causes is mentioned by Mill as constituting the “characteristic imperfection” of the method of agreement. As the term signifies, plurality of causes represents a condition where a given phenomenon has more than one cause, or where different causes produce the same effect. For example, “A poor crop” may be due to drought, neglect, pests, etc.; heat may be caused by friction, electricity, combustion. Unfavorable home conditions; ill health; dislike for teacher—any one of these might be followed by irregular attendance. ”

“ It is manifest, therefore, that, if we are to attempt to ascend to the Supreme Cause—if we are to try to frame an idea of the Cause of all these subordinate causes;—we must conceive it as more different from any of them, than the most diverse are from each other;—more elevated above the highest, than the highest is above the lowest. ”

“ Remove the leading error and governing fear of this lower mind, and you remove the cause of any disease, as well as the morbid and excited action of any organ. You also remove, in this way, what are termed organic diseases as readily as functional difficulties.
The remote cause of all disease is mental, even a mistaken belief, — a conviction of the necessity and power Terror's potency. of ill-health, and a conclusion that Mind is helpless to defend the Life of man, and wholly incompetent to control it. ”

“ The student has therefore failed to prove his argument that poor health, which is a legitimate cause, is responsible for his failure. The evidence shows that general dissipation, which is not a legitimate cause, has intervened between the alleged cause and the effect. ”

“ Fallacies of cause occur in every hour of waking life. We attribute effects to wrong causes. We are especially liable to this from the fact that both cause and effect are conditions, and causation is a change of condition from an antecedent to a consequent. ”

“ The insanitary conditions abounding everywhere, and which are directly, or indirectly, the cause of much preventible suffering and mortality, call for your thoughtful attention as to the most practicable means of dealing with them. ”

“ The truth is, that we are born into a system of things in which every act carries with it, by indissoluble ties, a long train of consequences reaching to the most distant future, and which for the whole course of time affect our own condition, the condition of other men, and even the conditions of external nature. ”

“ The reason is, That as all the Parts of Nature are Self-knowing, so they are Self-loving: Also, Regular Societies beget an united Love, by Regular Agreements, which cause a Rational Fear of a disuniting, or dissolving; and that is the reason, that upon the perception of such a Disease, the Rational, through some disorder, figures that Disease; and the Sensitive Corporeal Motions, take a pattern from the Rational, and so the Disease is produced. ”

“ His natural good sense, however, soon reacted against these impressions, for he knew that all the astonishing manifestations which he had met with must be due to natural causes. But what natural cause could explain the danger-signal which had reached him, or the violent shock which he had just experienced? ”

“ Whatever can cause, or help to cause, discomfort, pain, sickness, death, vice, or crime—and whatever has a tendency to avert or destroy, or diminish such cases—are matters of interest to the sanitarian ”

“ Again, there has, within quite a recent period of time, come a considerable change in the human system itself, attributable in a measure, probably, to some or all of the above causes, in relation to the character and tendencies of diseases. ”

“ A far less worthy cause is in many cases the true one, to which is attributable the decline in health at a critical period when all the vital forces of the system are necessarily called into action to introduce the activity of a new function. ”

“ To diagnose truly this malady we must look to some cause that is coterminous in time with the disease itself and which has been operative throughout civilization. We must seek some widespread change in social conditions, for man's essential nature has changed but little, and the change must, therefore, be of environment. ”

“ Plurality of causes also is a very common circumstance in all the sciences, and especially in concrete phenomena, and in the complex ones of animal life; the arrival of a ship for example at a distant port, is a result of many conditions. Similarly with most of our mental actions, they are compounds of feeling and intellect, and produced by many causes, such as hereditary tendency, acquired habit, internal and external mental excitants, dogmatic belief, knowledge of empirical rules, and occasionally of verified principles. ”

“ The vis vitæ or vital principle—for we are compelled by the imperfection of our knowledge to associate under this one term the ultimate causes of many of the phenomena of life—is a [Pg 392] power which, although constantly employed, has the capability of continually renewing itself by some inexplicable connection existing between it and many external influences. We know that certain conditions are necessary to the health of animals. Diseased digestion, or any interruption in the circulation of the blood, destroys the vital force, and death ensues. ”

“ And in practice, that particular condition is usually styled the cause, whose share in the matter is superficially the most conspicuous, or whose requisiteness to the production of the effect we happen to be insisting on at the moment. So great is the force of this last consideration, that it sometimes induces us to give the name of cause even to one of the negative conditions. ”

“ But what has been just said suggests to us that it may be an improvement to put our problem in another shape:—not to take for granted that the cause of all vital processes is one, but to suppose that there may be several separate causes at work in a living body. ”

“ As many as shall settle their Judgments properly on this Principle, will never be imposed upon by the superficial Gloss of these Sophisms contrived to prove, that all Diseases proceed from one Cause; and that this Cause is so very tractable, as to yield to one boasted Remedy. They will perceive at once, that such an Assertion must be founded in the utmost Knavery or Ignorance; and they will readily discover where the Fallacy lies. ”

“ The positive effects of a created free cause, those which the latter by nature is intended to produce, are attributable to the first cause or creator of the free cause, and the first cause is responsible for them. The failures of the created free cause to produce its natural and intended effects, are not due to the first cause ”

“ Doubtless this is the truth; and it would be a most interesting subject of investigation, to ascertain what special forms of evil or moral disorder those universal physical disorders are derived from and correspond to. The day, perhaps, will come, when science, which at present concerns itself too exclusively with effects, will be able to rise more into the region of causes, and then such subjects will claim its earnest attention. ”

“ Thus, if a cause be defined, that which produces any thing; it is easy to observe, that producing is synonymous to causing. In like manner, if a cause be defined, that by which any thing exists; this is liable to the same objection. ”

“ The influence of the First Cause is universal, that is to say, it produces all creatural acts without exception,—necessary and free, good and bad,—because no secondary cause has power to act unless it is set in motion by the motor primus. ”

“ I shall point out the difference that exists between the debility which is brought on by the diminished action of the powers which support life, and that which results from their too powerful action; I shall then inquire into the nature of diseases of increased excitement; and after having shown how the undue action of the powers which support life, operates in producing disease, I shall endeavour to lay down such rules for the preservation of health, as are the result of reasoning on these subjects, and are also confirmed by experience. ”

“ CURE. In this lecture I shall treat of external disorders, which may take their origin either from injuries, or from internal acrimony of habit; for whatever disturbs the animal œconomy, prevents the natural order of the fibres, and those again when in disorder, corrupt the fluids. ”

“ THERE are certain mental mysteries associated with peculiar states of disease, and especially with low, nervous diseases, which discover unexpected powers of mind, and which illustrate some of the conditions on which human life depends, and the laws that govern its continuance. ”

“ When we enumerate causes of disease we see among them many that under ordinary circumstances minister to life, health, and enjoyment; and I can hardly refer at all to the varying circumstances under which they become the medium of pain, disease and death. These circumstances are so various, so many of them are apt to be put in operation at the same time, and so little power have we of excluding them one after the other, so as to ascertain the exact efficiency of each, that our observation respecting their actual effects are open to much fallacy. ”

“ Nowadays, all this is past, in medical science. As to the causes of disease, we know that they are facts of nature,—various, but distinguishable by diagnosis and research, and more or less capable of prevention or control or counter-action. ”

“ In this work new theories, some revolutionary in the extreme, are advanced as to the nature of disease, the action of drugs and stimulants, the germ theory, the quantity of food necessary to sustain life, of cancer, insanity, pain, fatigue, sleep, death, the causation and maintenance of bodily heat and of human vitality. ”

“ A single touch, by introducing into the body some morbid matter, may set up an immensely involved set of functional disturbances and structural alterations. The whole tenor of a life may be changed by a word of advice; or a glance may determine an action which alters thoughts, feelings, and deeds throughout a long series of years. In those still more involved combinations of changes which societies exhibit, this truth is still more conspicuous. ”

“ Thus the natural history of doubt, viewed as a chapter of human history, like the chapter of physiology which studies a disease, will point indirectly to the cure, or at least to the mode of avoiding the causes which induce the disease ”

“ The reparative process which Nature has instituted and which we call disease, has been hindered by some want of knowledge or attention, in one or in all of these things, and pain, suffering, or interruption of the whole process sets in. ”

“ We may therefore broadly conclude that the only circumstance, within the range of those by which persons of similar conditions of life are affected, capable of producing a marked effect on the character of adults, is illness or some accident which causes physical infirmity. ”

“ Disease and health, like circumstances, are rooted in thought. ”

“ But the principal causes of disease are physical, for the human body is composed of numerous elements, but in the measure of an especial equilibrium. As long as this equilibrium is maintained, man is preserved from disease; but if this essential balance, which is the pivot of the constitution, is disturbed, the constitution is disordered, and disease will supervene. ”

“ Perhaps one might say that you have discovered [Pg 200] the unitary principle underlying the laws of health and disease, for which men have searched since the beginning of time. Behind all physical ills they have looked for Evil. Behind diseases they have looked for Disease. ”

“ In regard to the decay of bodily or mental faculties, much more can be done to prevent or retard them than is generally supposed, and some methods for this end which have been gained by observation or experience will be presented. ”