A boy throws a stone into a pond.
The ripples spread.
The water level rises.
The history of that pond is altered to all eternity.
It will be altered by other causes also.
Yet it will be forever the resultant of all causes combined.
Each one will have an influence.
How great only omniscience can say.
You may speak of a chain, or if you please, a net.
An analogy is of little aid.
Each cause brings about future events.
Without each the future would not be the same.
Each is proximate in the sense it is essential.
But that is not what we mean by the word.
Nor on the other hand do we mean sole cause.
There is no such thing.
Justice Andrews' dissent in Palsgraf v. Long Island Railroad Co., 248 N.Y. 339 (1928).
