For a further explanation see: cause.
‘Cause and effect’. – In this mirror – and our intellect is a mirror – something is taking place that exhibits regularity, a certain thing always succeeds another certain thing- this we call, when we perceive it and want to call it something, cause and effect – we fools! As though we had here understood something or other, or could understand it! For we have seen nothing but pictures of’causes and effects’! And it is precisely this pictorialness that makes impossible an insight into a more essential connection than that of mere succession.
Daybreak paragraph 121