Bloch’s second distinction, between exceptional and general causes, comes into play. Bloch’s point was that although his mountain climber could not have fallen from his precipice without the path along it having been built, without the mountain having been uplifted, and without the law of gravity having been in effect, not everyone who skirts precipices plummets from them. The placement of the path, the existence of the mountain, the effects of gravity were all general causes of the accident: they were necessary for the death to have occurred, but they weren’t in themselves sufficient to
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