IX.

CAUSES AND CONDITIONS.


The expression "_relative_ first cause" has been used in the last section
to distinguish the action of the creative principle in the _individual_
mind from Universal First Cause on the one hand and from secondary causes
on the other. As it exists in _us_, primary causation is the power to
initiate a train of causation directed to an individual purpose. As the
power of initiating a fresh sequence of cause and effect it is first cause,
and as referring to an individual purpose it is relative, and it may
therefore be spoken of as relative first cause, or the power of primary
causation manifested by the individual. The understanding and use of this
power is the whole object of Mental Science, and it is therefore necessary
that the student should clearly see the relation between causes and
conditions. A simple illustration will go further for this purpose than any
elaborate explanation. If a lighted candle is brought into a room the room
becomes illuminated, and if the candle is taken away it becomes dark again.
Now the illumination and the darkness are both conditions, the one positive
resulting from the presence of the light, and the other negative resulting
from its absence: from this simple example we therefore see that every
positive condition has an exactly opposite negative condition corresponding
to it, and that this correspondence results from their being related to the
_same cause_, the one positively and the other negatively; and hence we may
lay down the rule that all positive conditions result from the active