Abstract

[Cause and effect], if they are distinct, are also identical. Even in ordinary consciousness that identity may be found. We say that a cause is a cause, only when it has an effect, and vice versa. Both cause and effect are thus one and the same content: and the distinction between them is primarily only that the one lays down, and the other is laid down.The Logic of Hegel, Translated from ““The Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences,”” 3rd ed., trans. William Wallace, §153; hereafter cited as ““Lesser Logic”” parenthetically in the text by section number. Similarly, in the Science of Logic Hegel writes: ““Cause is cause only in so far as it produces an effect, and cause is nothing but this determination, to have an effect, and effect is nothing but this, to have a cause. Cause as such implies its effect, and effect implies cause; in so far as cause has not yet acted, or if it has ceased to act, then it is not cause, and effect in so far as its cause has vanished, is no longer effect but in indifferent actuality””. See also Hegel’s discussion of rain and wetness, color and pigment, and act and motion in ibid., 560–61.