[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.
1646. Sir T. Browne, Pseud. Ep., I. xi. Ascribing effects thereunto [to the stars] of independent causations.
1695. Congreve, Love for L., III. xi. 59. Albertus Magnus … says it [Astrology] teaches us to consider the Causation of Causes, in the Causes of things.
[1790. Reid, Lett., in Wks. I. 76/1. The thing most essential to causation in its proper meaning—to wit, efficiency—is wanting.
1817. Coleridge, 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.
1875. Stubbs, 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.
1739. Hume, Human Nat., I. iv. Cousins in the fourth degree are connected by causation.
1809. W. Irving, Knickerb. (1861), 13. To detect … some latent chain of causation.
1831. Blakey, Free-will, 198. All that we know of physical causation is, that one thing precedes another in a regular order of sequence.
1860. Emerson, Cond. Life, Fates (1861), 29. A man … looks like a piece of luck, but is a piece of causation.
1883. A. Barratt, Phys. Metempiric, 85. The broad relation … between noumena and their phenomena, seems most reasonably conceived as one of Eficient Causation, not the mere sequence of phenomena which we call physical causation.
¶ 2. An excuse. (L. causatio; ? not Eng.)
1656. Blount, Glossogr., Causation, an excuse, essoyning or pretence.
1662. Phillips, Causation (Lat.), an excusing, or alleadging of a cause.
Hence Causationism, the theory or principle of universal causation; Causationist, one who believes in this theory or principle.
1847. Emerson, Repr. Men, Montaigne, Wks. (Bohn), I. 345. We are natural conservers and causationists, and reject a sour dumpish unbelief. Ibid. (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.
