Fate & causation. Marcus Aurelius 4.45

Ancient science, and skepticism, must reckon earlier (and so at some moment better) than modern with a lack of information pertaining to causation. We observe that events occur in natural series (cf. the human and animal lifecycles, for example), & that the series show familiar resemblance (such that sons share mortality with fathers), but these observations are not sufficient to know the future in particular cases (shall I die precisely the way my father did? possibly, but not necessarily). Part of the genius of the modern laboratory is its ability to create maximally isolated events, events insulated from the noise of natural environments so much that we can see variables whose limitation allows us to infer causation that it would not be possible to infer elsewhere. A strong caveat here: what becomes a cause in our lab is not always necessarily the only cause, or the same kind of cause, in nature, where causation is fraught in ways that resist linear disentanglement.

Τὰ ἑξῆς ἀεὶ τοῖς προηγησαμένοις οἰκείως ἐπιγίνεται· οὐ γὰρ οἷον καταρίθμησίς τίς ἐστιν ἀπηρτημένων (†) καὶ μόνον τὸ κατηναγκασμένον ἔχουσα, ἀλλὰ συνάφεια εὔλογος· καὶ ὥσπερ συντέτακται συνηρμοσμένως τὰ ὄντα, οὕτως τὰ γινόμενα οὐ διαδοχὴν ψιλήν, ἀλλὰ θαυμαστήν τινα οἰκειότητα ἐμφαίνει.

Events in series always end in keeping with their origins. For there is no such thing as a reckoning of events utterly discrete, such that one has no bearing on another; nor is there any reckoning that will show pure causation, beyond all reach of chance or choice. Instead, nature shows us well-formed connections. The outcome of this: all things are composed harmoniously, such that events manifest a certain wondrous likeness to one another over time, without revealing the causes of their succession.

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(†) Here I have chosen to read a participle with Farquharson rather than the adverb (ἀπηρτημένως) with Leopold. I am not sure which reading has better support in the MSS.