Bluffton University

NSC111: Physics/Earth/Space
Resource page: Ambrose Bierce on Causality

Ambrose Bierce was a journalist and professional cynic whose Devil's Dictionary was and continues to be a popular source of dry deflations of the puffed-up. The entry for "effect" is
effect, n.
The second of two phenomena which always occur together in the same order. The first, called a Cause, is said to generate the other -- which is no more sensible than it would be for one who has never seen a dog except in the pursuit of a rabbit to declare the rabbit the cause of a dog.

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Copyright © 2001 by Daniel J. Berger. This work may be copied without limit if its use is to be for non-profit educational purposes. Such copies may be by any method, present or future. The author requests only that this statement accompany all such copies. All rights to publication for profit are retained by the author.