The Will to Power · Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
631.
The unalterable sequence of certain phenomena does not prove any "law," but a relation of power between two or more forces. To say, "But it is precisely this relation that remains the same!" is no better than saying, "One and the same force cannot be another force."--It is not a matter of _sequence,_ but a matter of _interdependence,_ a process in which the procession of moments do _not_ determine each other after the manner of cause and effect.... The separation of the "action" from the "agent"; of the phenomenon from the _worker_ of that phenomenon: of the process from one that is not process, but lasting, _substance,_ thing, body, soul, etc.; the attempt to understand a life as a sort of shifting of things and a changing of places; of a sort of "being" or stable entity: this ancient mythology established the belief in "cause and effect," once it had found a lasting form in the functions of speech and grammar.
Text from Project Gutenberg, public domain in the United States.