Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Of causes, some are initiatory, some are sustaining, some are cooperative, and some are those without which a thing cannot occur. Initiatory causes are those that first supply an occasion for something to come to be, as beauty does for the unrestrained, in respect of desire; for when seen it produces in them only the erotic disposition, not indeed by compulsion. Sustaining causes are those which, by a synonymous term, are also called complete-in-themselves, since they are, by themselves, sufficient to produce the effect. Next all the causes must be shown in the case of the one who is learning. The father is the initiatory cause of the learning, the teacher the sustaining cause; the nature of the learner is the cooperative cause, and time holds the place of that without which the effect cannot occur.
A cause, properly speaking, is that which actively supplies something; since we say that iron is capable of cutting not only when it is cutting, but also when it is not cutting. Thus what supplies signifies two things: that which is presently engaged in acting, and also that which has not started to act, though it is furnished with the power to do so.
Some say that causes belong to the class of bodies, others that they belong to the class of incorporeals; others say that body, properly speaking, is a cause, while the incorporeal is a cause only by an extended usage, so to speak, causally; others reverse this, saying that incorporeals are, properly speaking, causes, while bodies are causes only by an extended usage — for instance, cutting, being an activity, has no body, and this bodiless activity is what causes the cutting, since it is both an activity and incorporeal — and the same holds for being cut — though the knife and the object cut are themselves bodily.
'Being the cause of something' is said in three ways: the one which is the cause, as for instance the sculptor; that of which it is the cause, as for instance the statue's coming to be; and that by which it is the cause, as for instance the material — for it is by the bronze that he is the cause of the statue's coming to be. So coming-to-be and being-cut, that of which something is the cause, are activities and are incorporeal.
In this connection causes are causes of predicates, or, as some say, of 'sayables' (for Cleanthes and Archedemus call predicates sayables); or rather, and more properly, some causes will be said to be causes of predicates, as of 'it is being cut,' whose case is being-cut, and others of propositions, as of 'a ship comes to be,' whose case, again, is the ship's coming to be; but Aristotle calls them causes of common nouns, such as of house, ship, burning, cutting. It is agreed that the case has no body; and on this basis that sophism gets untangled: 'whatever word you utter comes out through your lips' — granted, true; 'but you utter the word house, so a house comes out through your lips' — false; for what we mean is not the physical house, but the incorporeal case for which 'house' merely serves as the name.
And we say the builder builds, in reference to the thing that is to come to be. So too we say a cloak is being woven [...]; for the maker indicates an activity. And it is not that the maker belongs to one thing and the cause to another, but they belong to the same thing [whether of the cloak or of the house]; for insofar as one is the cause of something's coming to be, in that same respect one is also the producer of its coming to be. The same thing, then, is both cause and producer [and that on account of which]. And if something is both a cause and a producer, this is altogether also that on account of which; but if something is that on account of which, it is not altogether also a cause. For many things concur toward one effect, things on account of which the end comes about, but not all of them are causes. Medea, for example, would never have slain her offspring if rage had not seized her, and rage would never have seized her without jealousy, and jealousy would never have arisen without her falling in love, and none of that without Jason's voyage to Colchis, and no voyage without the building of the Argo, and no Argo unless timber had first been felled on Pelion. Amid all these, each stands as something 'on account of which,' yet none of them but Medea herself counts as a cause of the killing.
That which does not prevent is inactive, and therefore that which does not prevent is not a cause, but that which does prevent is. For a cause is conceived of in terms of acting and doing something.
Further, that which does not prevent is separate from the thing that comes about (for indeed the thing is accomplished for this very reason, that what is capable of preventing it is not present), whereas the cause stands in relation to the thing that comes about; therefore that which does not prevent could not be a cause.
A cause is spoken of in four ways: the maker, as the sculptor; the matter, as the bronze; the form, as the impressed shape; and the end, as the prize awarded by the games-master. Bronze holds the place of 'that without which' with respect to the statue's coming to be, and is likewise a cause; for everything without which the effect cannot possibly come about is, of necessity, a cause, though not a cause in the unqualified sense. For that without which is not a sustaining cause, but a cooperative one. Everything that acts produces the effect together with a fitness on the part of the thing acted upon; for the cause disposes, while each thing is acted upon according to its own nature. Fitness is what supplies the occasion, and it holds the place of the things without which the effect cannot come about. A cause is therefore inoperative without fitness, yet fitness itself is not a cause but a cooperative factor, since every cause is conceived of in terms of acting. The earth cannot fashion itself into being; therefore it likewise cannot stand as its own cause. It is ridiculous to say that it is not the fire that is the cause of burning but the wood, nor the knife the cause of the cutting but the flesh, nor the strength of his opponent the cause of the athlete's being thrown, but his own weakness.
The sustaining cause has no need of time; for the branding-iron, the instant it is pressed against the flesh, produces the pain. Of the initiatory causes, some need time until the effect comes about, others do not, as the falling that causes a fracture. Perhaps these are not called timeless by an absolute lack of time, but by a diminution of it, just as 'suddenly' too does not occur apart from time altogether.
Every cause, as a cause, must be grasped by a twofold conception; since it is conceived of as being of something and as being in relation to something — of something, namely the effect, as the knife is the cause of cutting; and in relation to something, namely to that which is suitably disposed, as fire is in relation to wood, for it will not burn adamant. A cause belongs to the class of relatives; for it is conceived of in terms of its relation to something else, so that we must attend to two things in order to conceive of the cause as a cause.
The same account holds concerning the demiurge and maker, and concerning the father. Nothing serves as its own cause, nor is anything father to itself, since otherwise the first thing would turn into the second. Rather, the cause is what acts and disposes, whereas what comes to be through the cause is what is acted upon and disposed. But the same thing, taken in relation to itself, cannot both act and be disposed at the same time; nor can it be both son and father. And besides, the cause is prior in substance to the thing that comes to be by it, as the knife is prior to the cutting. But the same thing cannot, in the same respect, both be prior in time to the matter and, insofar as it is a cause, also come later and later in time, insofar as it is the work of the cause. And to be differs from to become; so likewise a thing is a cause of what comes to be, but a father of a son. For the same thing cannot, in the same respect, both be and come to be at the same time. Nothing, then, is the cause of itself.
Causes do not cause one another, yet they do act as causes on behalf of one another. For an existing splenic condition does not cause the fever itself, but rather causes the fever's coming to be; and the fever, when it already exists, is not the cause of the spleen, but of the increase of that condition. Likewise the virtues, thanks to their mutual entailment, serve one another as causes of their staying undivided; the stones set within an arch serve one another as causes of remaining under the predicate 'stand,' though none causes another; and instructor and pupil serve one another as causes of the predicate 'making progress.' Sometimes such mutual causes concern the very same outcome, as merchant and shopkeeper serve one another as causes of turning a profit; and sometimes of one thing and another, as the knife and the flesh — the one being cause to the flesh of being cut, the flesh being cause to the knife of cutting.
'An eye for an eye' and 'a life for a life.'
For whoever deals another a lethal blow becomes for that man the cause of his death, or rather of his death's coming to be; yet should that same man strike back and kill him in turn, he too now has the first as his cause — though not in the identical sense he was a cause to him, but in a different sense. For he brought about the man's death, yet it was not his own death that struck the fatal blow against him in return, but the injured man acting himself; so he has thus become cause of one outcome, while having another as the cause acting upon him. And the one who commits injustice becomes, to the other, the cause of the injury suffered; but the law that commands retaliation is not the cause of the injustice, but is, to the one, a cause of retribution, and to the other, a cause of correction. So causes are not causes of one another as causes, but they are causes for one another.
It is further asked whether, when many causes concur toward one effect, they become many causes. For the men who join together are the cause of the ship's being launched; but not each one individually is the cause — <only together with the others, unless the joint cause too is to be called a cause. Others say that if there are many causes, each individually becomes the cause of one thing.> For instance, though happiness is one thing, the virtues, being many, are its causes, and likewise for being warmed and for being pained there are many causes alike. Perhaps, then, the many virtues form, in respect of capacity, a single unity, as do the things that warm and the things that pain; and the whole multitude of virtues, unified under one genus, becomes the cause of a single thing, namely happiness. In truth, initiatory causes of one thing become many both by genus and by species — by genus, of falling ill in general, such as chilling, overheating, fatigue, indigestion, drunkenness; by species, of fever in particular. But sustaining causes are many only by genus, no longer also by species. For though smelling sweet is one thing by genus, there are many causes of it by species — frankincense, rose, saffron, storax, myrrh, perfume; for the rose would not smell as sweet as the myrrh does.
The same thing becomes the cause of opposite effects, sometimes on account of the magnitude of the cause and its power, sometimes on account of the fitness of the thing acted upon. By virtue of a particular power: one string, depending on how taut or loose it is strung, yields either a high pitch or a low one. On account of the fitness of the things acted upon: honey tastes sweet to the healthy but bitter to the feverish, and one and the same wine drives some to anger and others to good cheer, and the same sun melts wax but hardens clay.
Of causes, then, some are plainly evident, some are grasped by inference, and some are unclear, grasped by reasoning by analogy. And of the unclear, some are unclear only for a time — hidden at one time, but again plainly seen at another — while others are unclear by nature, incapable of ever becoming plainly evident at any time. And of those unclear by nature, some are comprehensible — which some have called 'not unclear,' being grasped through signs by analogical reasoning, as is the symmetry of the pores discerned by reason alone — while others are incomprehensible, incapable in any way whatsoever of falling under comprehension; these indeed are called unclear in the absolute sense.
And some causes are initiatory, some sustaining, some joint causes, and some cooperative. And some belong to what is according to nature, others to what is contrary to nature, others to disease; and, in a subordinate way, some belong to the affections, some to their magnitude, and some to times and seasons.
Now when the initiatory causes are removed, the effect remains; but a sustaining cause is one whose presence keeps the effect in existence and whose removal removes it. The sustaining cause is called, by a synonymous term, also complete-in-itself, since on its own it suffices to bring about the effect. And if this self-sufficient cause points to a self-sufficient activity, the cooperative cause signifies a service and a joint ministration with another. If, then, it contributes nothing, it will not even be called cooperative; but if it does contribute, it is altogether the cause of that to which it contributes, that is, of what comes about through it. A cooperative cause, then, is one whose presence brings about the effect — in the case of the plainly evident, together with a plainly evident cause, and in the case of the unclear, together with an unclear one. And the joint cause too belongs to the class of causes, in the way that a comrade-in-arms still counts as a soldier, and a fellow trainee still counts as a trainee. Now the cooperative cause assists the sustaining cause toward the intensification of what comes about by it, but the joint cause is not of the same notion; for a thing can be a joint cause even if it is not a sustaining cause. For the joint cause is conceived of as being with another, since it too is unable by itself alone to produce the effect, being a cause together with another cause. Here is where the cooperative cause parts ways with the joint cause: the joint cause lends its contribution alongside another factor that, alone, cannot produce the effect, whereas the cooperative cause does not act by itself alone, but, coming to the aid of another that does act by itself, cooperates with it so that the effect comes about more forcefully. And it is especially the case, when a cooperative cause arises out of an initiatory one <toward being cooperative>, that it demonstrates the power of the cause extending further.
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