[17] That Cause exists is plausible; for how could there come about increase, decrease, generation, corruption, motion in general, each of the physical and mental effects, the ordering of the whole universe, and everything else, except by reason of some cause? ¹ For even if none of these things has real existence, ² we shall affirm that it is due to some cause that they appear to us other than they really are.

[18] Moreover, if cause were non-existent everything would have been produced by everything and at random. Horses, for instance, might be born, perchance, of flies, and elephants of ants; and there would have been severe rains and snow in Egyptian Thebes, while the southern districts would have had no rain, unless there had been a cause which makes the southern parts stormy, the eastern dry.

[19] Also, he who asserts that there is no Cause is refuted; for if he says that he makes this assertion absolutely and without any cause, he will not win credence; but if he says that he makes it owing to some cause, he is positing Cause while wishing to abolish it, since he offers us a cause to prove the non-existence of Cause.

For these reasons, then, the existence of Cause is plausible.

[20] But that it is also plausible to say that nothing is the Cause of anything will be evident when we have set forth, to suit the occasion, a few of the many arguments which go to prove this case. Thus it is, for example, impossible to conceive the Cause before apprehending its effect as its effect; for we only recognize that it is causative of the effect when we apprehend the latter as an effect.

[21] But we cannot either apprehend the effect of the Cause as its effect unless we apprehend the Cause of the effect as its Cause; for we think we know that it is its effect only when we have apprehended the Cause of it as its Cause.

[22] If, then, in order to conceive the Cause, we must first know the effect, while in order to know the effect we must, as I said, have previous knowledge of the Cause, the fallacy of this circular mode of reasoning proves both to be inconceivable, the Cause being incapable of being conceived as Cause, and the effect as effect. For since each of them needs the evidence of the other, we shall not be able to say which conception is to have the precedence. Hence we shall be unable to declare that anything is the Cause of anything.

[23] And even were one to grant that Cause can be conceived, it might be held to be inapprehensible because of the divergency of opinion. For he who says that there is some Cause of something either asserts that he makes this statement absolutely and without basing it on any rational cause, or else he will declare that he has arrived at his conviction owing to certain causes. ³ If, then, he says that he states it ‟absolutely,” he will be no more worthy of credence than the man who asserts ‟absolutely” that nothing is a cause of anything; whereas if he shall mention causes on account of which he holds that something causes something, he will be attempting to support the matter in question by means of that matter itself; for when we are examining the question whether anything is the Cause of anything, he asserts that Cause exists since there exists a cause for the existence of Cause.

[24] Besides, since we are inquiring about the reality of Cause, it will certainly be necessary for him to produce a cause for the cause of the existence of Cause, and of that cause yet another, and so on ad infinitum. But it is impossible to produce causes infinite in number. It is impossible, therefore, to affirm positively that anything is Cause of anything.

[25] Moreover, the Cause, when it produces the effect, either is and subsists already as causal or is non-causal. Certainly it is not non-causal; while if it is causal, it must first have subsisted and become causal, and thereafter produces the effect which is said to be brought about by it as already existing Cause. But since the Cause is relative and relative to the effect, it is clear that it cannot be prior in existence to the latter; therefore not even as being causal can the Cause bring about that whereof it is Cause.

[26] And if it does not bring about anything either as being or as not being causal, then it does not bring anything about; and hence it will not be a Cause; for apart from its effecting something the Cause cannot be conceived as Cause.

Hence some people argue thus: The Cause must either subsist along with its effect or before it or must come into being after it. Now to say that the Cause is brought into existence after the appearance of its effect would seem ridiculous. But neither can it subsist before the effect; for it is said to be conceived in relation thereto, and they affirm that relatives,

[27] in so far as they are relative, co-exist with each other and are conceived together. Nor, again, can it subsist along with its effect; for if it is productive of the effect, and what comes into existence must so come by the agency of what exists already, the Cause must have become causal first, and this done, then produces its effect. If, then, the Cause neither subsists before its effect, nor subsists along with it, nor does the effect precede the Cause, it would seem that it has no substantial existence at all.

[28] And it is clear probably that by these arguments the conception of Cause is overthrown again. For if Cause as a relative notion cannot be conceived before its effect, and yet, if it is to be conceived as causative of its effect, it must be conceived before its effect, while it is impossible for anything to be conceived before that which the conception of it cannot precede,—then it is impossible for the Cause to be conceived.

[29] From all this we conclude finally that—if the arguments by which it was shown ⁴ that we ought to affirm the existence of Cause are plausible, and if the arguments which go to prove that it is improper to declare that any Cause exists are likewise plausible, and if it is inadmissible to prefer any of these arguments to the others, since, as we have shown above, ⁵ we confessedly possess neither sign nor criterion nor proof,—we are compelled to suspend judgement concerning the real existence of Cause, declaring that a Cause is ‟no more” existent than non-existent, if we are to judge by the statements made by the Dogmatists.