The following passage is taken from an article relating two of Aristotle’s four causes: the efficient cause and the final cause. In every part of the universe we observe means adjusted with the nicest artifice to the ends which they are in- tended to produce; and I the mechanism of a plant, or animal body, admire how every thing is contrived for ad- vancing the two great purposes of nature, the support of the individual, and propagation of the species. But in these, and in all such objects, we still distinguish the efficient from the final cause of their several motions and organiza- tions. The digestion of the food, the circulation of the blood, and the secretion of the several juices which are drawn from it, are operations all of them necessary for the great purpose of animal life. Yet we never endeavour [sic] to ac- count for them from those purposes as from their efficient causes, nor imagine that the blood circulates, or that the food digests of its own accord, and with a view or intention to the purposes of circulation or digestion. The wheels of the watch are all admirably adjusted to the end for which it was made, the pointing of the hour. All their various motions conspire in the nicest manner to produce this effect. If they were endowed with a desire and intention to produce it, they could not do it better. Yet we never ascribe any such desire or intention to them, but to the watch- maker, and we know that they are put into motion by a spring, which intends the effect it produces as little as they do. But though, in accounting for the operations final cause, in accounting for those of the mind we are very apt to confound these two different things with one another. When by natural principles we recommend to us, we are very apt to impute to that reason, as to their efficient cause, the sentiments and actions by which we advance those ends, and to imagine that to be the wisdom of man, which in reality is the wisdom of God. Upon a superficial view, this cause seems sufficient to produce the effects which are ascribed to it; the system of human nature seems to be more simple and agreeable when all its different operations are in this manner deduced from a single principle.
The following passage is taken from an article relating two of Aristotle’s four causes: the efficient cause and the final cause.
In every part of the universe we observe means adjusted with the nicest artifice to the ends which they are in- tended to produce; and I the mechanism of a plant, or animal body, admire how every thing is contrived for ad- vancing the two great purposes of nature, the support of the individual, and propagation of the species. But in these, and in all such objects, we still distinguish the efficient from the final cause of their several motions and organiza- tions. The digestion of the food, the circulation of the blood, and the secretion of the several juices which are drawn from it, are operations all of them necessary for the great purpose of animal life. Yet we never endeavour [sic] to ac- count for them from those purposes as from their efficient causes, nor imagine that the blood circulates, or that the food digests of its own accord, and with a view or intention to the purposes of circulation or digestion. The wheels of the watch are all admirably adjusted to the end for which it was made, the pointing of the hour. All their various motions conspire in the nicest manner to produce this effect. If they were endowed with a desire and intention to produce it, they could not do it better. Yet we never ascribe any such desire or intention to them, but to the watch- maker, and we know that they are put into motion by a spring, which intends the effect it produces as little as they do. But though, in accounting for the operations final cause, in accounting for those of the mind we are very apt to confound these two different things with one another. When by natural principles we recommend to us, we are very apt to impute to that reason, as to their efficient cause, the sentiments and actions by which we advance those ends, and to imagine that to be the wisdom of man, which in reality is the wisdom of God. Upon a superficial view, this cause seems sufficient to produce the effects which are ascribed to it; the system of human nature seems to be more simple and agreeable when all its different operations are in this manner deduced from a single principle.
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