The problem of the concept and existence of cause is one which haunts natural science and social science; the productive and destructive elements of this notion are an abiding element of our culture of thought. If nature is truly made up of causes and necessities which supervene our control, desires or intentions then, all too soon, the natural world becomes a clockwork, deterministic realm where the operations and machinations of the laws of nature, of genes, of physical forces, have a logical and existential priority which entails that human action and purpose is reduced to an ineffective, superficial consequence of deeper and darker reasons. One response to the seeming implacable lawruled reality which such a neutral, natural, causal desert portrays has been developed by those elements of social theory and the humanities which posit an entirely distinct realm of human society, culture and action with its own rules, reasons and causes. The description and delimitation of a distinct realm of human purpose and history was envisaged as removing the problem of positing human action simply as an epiphenomenal outcome of the natural world. But it did not remove the problem of the rigidity of the concept of cause and its operation within this supposedly distinct social realm. That is to say, the very character of the initial philosophical demarcation of cause as that which has necessary consequences retained its metaphysical grip as did the corollary of this position, namely that each cause must always produce its relevant effect or that each event or phenomenon must be traceable to its cause: social class determines educational achievement, for example.