Energy Efficient and Final Cause

Excerpt from Energy Efficient and Final Cause
The principle of cause and effect is involved in most of the processes by which we discover truth. True, there are verities which are perceived by intuition, that is, in looking upon the objects, such as that I exist and that material things exist. But it is only a small portion of our knowledge that is obtained by primary and direct inspection. In the case of other and derivative truths causation is implied, if not in the whole, at least in the greater number of them.
The principle has a place in the great body of our convictions as to the past. I do not see that it has any part in memory which is instinctive, but it has in all those which we reach by a process. Thus, we believe that there has been a battle at a certain place, a flood at a particular spot on a river, a fire in a dwelling, because we discover effects, which we argue imply a cause. Thus, we argue that certain strata in the earths surface are the deposits of an ancient ocean, and that other portions have been thrown up by a volcano. Even in regard to events which we believe on human testimony, we assume that the actors have been swayed by the same motives as men now are.
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