Causation, Principle of Universal. The theory that every event has a cause, whether we can identify the cause or not. Hume sought to repudiate this traditionally accepted view by arguing that we perceive only "constant conjunction" or "regular succession" but no necessary connection between event and cause. We see the sun "rise" and have seen this happen every day throughout our lives, so we say it "must" rise tomorrow; but we ought strictly speaking to say, rather: "I have never seen it happen otherwise any day during the past forty years, so I fully expect to see it happen tomorrow." Kant, however, made causation one of the "categories of the understanding." See Cosmological Argument.

Geddes MacGregor, Dictionary of Religion and Philosophy, New York: Paragon House, 1989