Human Knowledge and Its Significance for Man and the Cosmos

Nature herself will help us here to understand something which it is most essential to bear in mind if we wish to unfold a true picture of the world. Modern science has little by little instilled into us the dreadful maxim that the later is invariably to be regarded as a product of what has preceded it. Effect follows directly upon cause—so it is said. There is nothing more foolish than to generalise in this way about things in the world, saying that effect directly follows cause, and that cause gives rise to effect. There are always subsequent effects which have no direct connection whatever with a preceding cause. For how can it possibly be said that the cause of wheat being used as a foodstuff lies in the grain of wheat itself? It is true that during the 18th century a loose kind of thinking led people to explain the presence of certain cork-like substances for the ultimate purpose of producing corks for champagne bottles! It is impossible to imagine a more erroneous line of reasoning. The truth is that when wheat is used as a foodstuff, the grains of wheat pass over into another sphere of working altogether.