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FIRST CLASS OF OBJECTS FOB THE SUBJECT. 51
equally certain truths, this eternity of Matter (called the
permanence of substance) is forbidden fruit for professors
of philosophy ; so they slip past it with a bashful, sidelong
glance.
the endless chain of causes and effects which directs
By
all changes but never -extends beyond them, two existing
things remain untouched, precisely because of the limited
range of its action : on the one hand, Matter, as we have
just shown ; on the other hand, the primary forces of
Nature. The first (matter) remains uninfluenced by the
causal nexus, because it is that which undergoes all changes,
or on which they take place ; the second (the primary
forces), because it is they alone ~by which changes or effects
become possible ; for they alone give causality to causes,
i.e. the faculty of operating, which the causes therefore
hold as mere vassals a fief. Cause and effect are changes
connected together to necessary succession in Time ;
whereas the forces of Nature by means of which all causes
operate, are exempt from all change ;
in this sense there
fore they are outside Time, but precisely on that account
they are always and everywhere in reserve, omnipresent
and inexhaustible, ever ready to manifest themselves, as
soon as an opportunity presents itself in the thread of
causality. A cause, like its effect, is invariably something
individual, a single change ; whereas a force of Nature is
something universal, unchangeable, present at all times
and in all places. The attraction of a thread by amber,
for instance, at the present moment, is an effect ; its cause
is the preceding friction and actual contact of the amber
with the thread ; and the force of Nature which acts in,
and presides over, the process, is Electricity. The explana
tion of this matter is to be found in my chief work, 1
and
there I have shown in a long chain of causes and effects
1 See
"
Die Welt a. W. u. V." vol. i. 26, p. 153 of the 2nd, and
p. 160 of the 3rd edition.