| 释义 |
causation|kɔːˈzeɪʃən|
[ad. L. causātiōn-em excuse, pretext, used in med.L. in sense ‘action of causing’, f. med.L. causāre. Cf. F. causation.]
1. The action of causing; production of an effect.
1646Sir T. Browne Pseud. Ep. i. xi, Ascribing effects thereunto [to the stars] of independent causations. 1695Congreve Love for L. iii. xi. 59 Albertus Magnus..says it [Astrology] teaches us to consider the Causation of Causes, in the Causes of things. c1790Reid Let. in Wks. I. 76/1 The thing most essential to causation in its proper meaning—to wit, efficiency—is wanting. 1817Coleridge Biog. Lit. 293 It sometimes happens that we are punished for our faults by incidents, in the causation of which these faults had no share. 1875Stubbs Const. Hist. I. i. 1 The causation of any particular movement or the origin of any particular measure.
b. The operation of causal energy; the relation of cause and effect.
1739Hume Human Nat. i. iv, Cousins in the fourth degree are connected by causation. 1809W. Irving Knickerb. (1861) 13 To detect..some latent chain of causation. 1831R. Blakey Free Will 198 All that we know of physical causation is, that one thing precedes another in a regular order of sequence. 1860Emerson Cond. Life, Fates (1861) 29 A man..looks like a piece of luck, but is a piece of causation. 1883A. Barratt Phys. Metempiric 85 The broad relation..between noumena and their phenomena, seems most reasonably conceived as one of Efficient Causation, not the mere sequence of phenomena which we call physical causation.
¶2. An excuse. (L. causatio; ? not Eng.)
1656Blount Glossogr., Causation, an excuse, essoyning or pretence. 1662Phillips, Causation (Lat.), an excusing, or alleadging of a cause.
Hence cauˈsationism, the theory or principle of universal causation; cauˈsationist, one who believes in this theory or principle.
1847Emerson Repr. Men, Montaigne Wks. (Bohn) I. 345 We are natural conservers and causationists, and reject a sour dumpish unbelief. 1860― Cond. Life ii. All successful men have agreed in one thing—they were causationists. They believed that things went not by luck but by law. |