Events Happen in Sequence. Causes Do Not Come With Arrows.
Imagine three events: A happened. Then: B happened. Then: C happened. We can represent the sequence like this: A → B → C It looks innocent. Almost factual. But something important has happened between the historical record and the diagram. The events may be facts. The order may be correct. But what exactly does the arrow mean? before? because of? contributed to? triggered? made possible? accelerated? changed the probability of? resulted in? The arrow does not tell us. And yet the moment we draw it, the eye begins to see a connection. This reveals one of the deepest problems in historical reasoning: Events can occur in sequence. Causation is a claim about the relationship between them. The past gives us events. It does not give us arrows already drawn between them. Chronology Is a Relationship — But Not Yet a Cause Suppose we know: Event A occurred before Event B. This gives us a temporal relationship: A BEFORE B That relationship matters. A later event cannot normally cause an ea...