CAUSE
460
CAUSE
really touches the heart of the question. It hardly
calls for the remark that at most the causes, or more
properly the principles, assigned, even if understood
in the sense of inherent differentiating principles,
were such as would account for no more than an acci-
dental diversity, leaving all things, the diversity of
which was the very point to be explained, really iden-
tical in substance.
The progress from this first search for the elemental principles of being to the later investigation and in- terpretation of alteration, or change, in itself was gradual. Something had to be found that would account for the regularity of the succession of phe- nomena in the physical world, as well as for their diversity and alteration. The Pythagoreans put for- ward their doctrines of number as an explanation; Plato, his theory of ideas. Thus, in his advance upon his predecessors, he clearly allows, in a very real sense, for formal causes of existence. But he does not specify the nature of these ideas, other than as sub- stances, separate from the individual entities that they cause. In some manner not fully explained, these individual entities are precisely what they are by participating in the idea. In different passages in his writings Plato alludes to the relation between the ideas and the concrete entities as a participation, a community, or an imitation. Thus he states the fact of similarity in the essences and processes of the physical world, but does not offer any explanation or definite account of it. In common with the earlier nature philosophers, Plato assigns concrete causes but does not attempt to give any solution of the real problems of causality. Not until Aristotle formulated his famous doctrine of the four causes of being can it be said that the question was envisaged with sufficient clearness to admit of exact presentation or fruitful discussion. Instead of explaining diversity in the physical world by a reference to a common underlying principle and an accidental modification, either for- tuitous or designed, proceeding from it and in it — at best the crude makeshift of an incipient philosophy that has yet to state correctly the problem to be solved, instead of looking outside the object, or effect, for that which specifies it, and finding a substance entirely separated from it, to which its substantial existence in the world of phenomena, in some cryptic manner, is to be attributed, Aristotle instituted a pro- found inquiry into the essentially diverse modes in which any one thing can be said to contribute to the existence of any other. In so doing he changed the nature of the inquiry. The result was not only the discovery of the four causes, but a solution of the really far more important question of causality. There is no doubt but that his teaching is, in a very real sense, a synthesis of all that had gone before it; but it is a synthesis in which no one of the preceding doctrines is adopted precisely as it stood in the earlier systems. The secret which governed the adaptation of the currently accepted "principles" and made the synthesis possible, lay in the signification that he gave to the formal cause. The task he had to perform had ceased to be that of discovering merely physical con- stituents or principles, and hail shifted to the funda- mental issue of metaphysical inquiry. Aristotle gives the opinions of his predecessors at considerable length in the "Physics", and again in the "Meta- physics", in which he submits them to a careful analysis and rigorous criticism. Hut the elements of his own doctrine with regard to the four causes, as causes, were there in solution, 'flic signification of
the term ipx'h. already used, was sufficiently com- prehensive to include that of curia, since all causes
come necessarily under the head of principles. The
Ionians of the older scl 1 had dealt with matter.
Later Ionians had treated vaguely of efficient causes. The method and moral teaching of Socrates had
involved and brought out the idea, of the final, while
Plato had definitely taught the existence of separated
formal, causes. All these factors contributed to the
result of his inquiry, and the splendid historical criti-
cism and review to which he submits the earlier
philosophers and their teachings on this point show
not only his wide and profound acquaintance with
their doctrines, but his readiness also to credit them
with whatever they had advanced that at all made for
knowledge. Still, to this point, as has been said, it
was a question of principle rather than of cause; and,
when of cause as such, of cause considered in the con-
crete rather than of the causality of causes.
The problem, then, for Aristotle, took the form of an analysis of essences in such wise as to perceive, separate, and classify those principles which, in con- spiring to bring the essence of any effect, object or event, actually into existence, as it were, flow into it. For the idea of cause is of that which in any way influences the production of an effect as an essence. And, to declare the manner in which such causes, once discovered, are found to correspond, and play their several parts in causation, will be to state causality. Now, as our notion of principles in general, whether in the being, in the becoming, or in the understanding of any thing, is primarily derived from observation of motions taking place in space, so our notion of cause is derived from observation of changes, whether li ical, quantitative, qualitative, or substantial. The ex- planation of any change leads to the doctrine of the four distinctions, or classes, of causes as formulated by Aristotle. They were: —
matter, ii\y — to i£ ov yiverat ti Innripxovros form, nopipri, eioos — 6 Xi7o? 6 toO ti fiv elvai — moving, or efficient, cause, to klvtiti.k6v — S$ev
7} apxv T ys p.tTafio\ris ij irpwTTj — final cause, to tAos — t6 oS fraca. (Cf . Physics, II, hi.) These are severally related in various ways. It is in the declaration of this relationship that the notion and explanation of causality is to be found. The material cause, that out of which the princip- iate, or effect, is made or caused, is conceived as an indeterminate potentiality. It is determined to a definite substantial essence by the formal cause. This, in turn, is conceived as an actuality specifying the material potentiality. Formal causes are the changeless essences of things in themselves, perma- nent in them amid the flux of accidental modifications, yet by actual union with the material cause deter- mining this to the concrete individual; and not, like the ideas of Plato, separated from it. They are, under the action of the moving, or efficient, cause, the accomplishment of the determinability of matter. The moving, or efficient, cause, which, as will be seen later, is that which has come to be chiefly regarded as the true cause, and that round which most contro- versy has arisen, is, in this fourfold division of causes, that one by the operation or agency of which the effect is brought into being; i. e. by the operation of which t lie formal cause of the effect is induced in the material. Lasthy, the final cause is that principle on account of which the efficient cause moves towards the production of its effect. It is the effect itself formally considered as the term of the intention of the agent, or efficient cause. Neither Aristotle nor Plato is very clear as to the precise sense in which the final cause is to be understood. The Aristot clean phrase is loose enough to cover the two meanings: i.e.. the end considered as the object desired, and the end Considered as the desire of the object. Aristotle per- ceives and teaches that the end is frequently identified
with the form, and that this is also frequently iden- t ified Ml species wit h t he moving cause; for man. as he says in the example that he gives, begets man. It does not, however, follow that all moving causes are always identified, even in species, with their effects. Indeed, Aristotle teaches that this is not the case.
