It has been persistently maintained, however, that prophasis has two distinct meanings: (i) something that one says by way of excuse or pretext, and (2) something that actually "revealed itself " or happened, "a preceding phenomenon," which might be regarded as the "cause" of what followed, on the post hoc propter hoc principle, but would not necessarily be a real "cause." In medical terms this would mean a premonition or pre-symptom of a disease, sometimes (but not necessarily) a cause of it. The solution seems to present no grammatical difficulty at first sight.