Full Idea
If we found that things always explode after having been red for an hour, we would never suppose that what causes the explosion is simply a thing's having been red for an hour.
Gist of Idea
If things turn red for an hour and then explode, we wouldn't say the redness was the cause
Source
Sydney Shoemaker (Time Without Change [1969], p.63)
Book Reference
Shoemaker,Sydney: 'Identity, Cause and Mind' [OUP 2003], p.63
A Reaction
Shoemaker points out that even Hume says that cause and effect must be 'contiguous', but it clearly means that a simplistic regularity analysis of causation won't work.