Final cause

“ but for that which is Without a beginning, a final cause need not be sought, as has been stated by us. ”

“ Therefore the nature of a thing is a beginning, and so are the elements of a thing, and thought and will, and essence, and the final cause — for the good and the beautiful are the beginning both of the knowledge and of the movement of many things. ”

“ Now if similar effects demand similar causes how can we refuse to recognize even in these activities of physical nature the influence of final causes? Whenever and wherever we find a great and complex variety of active powers, forces, energies, issuing invariably in effects which suit and develop and perfect the agents in question,—in a word, which are good for these agents,—whether the latter be conscious or unconscious, does not reason itself dictate to us that all such domains of action must be subject to the influence of final causes? ”

“ And as all observations of final causes, drawn from the principles of action in the heart of man, compared with the condition he is placed in, serve all the good uses which instances of final causes in the material world about us do ”

“ And the teacher and the learner are to one another causes of progressing as respects the predicate.
And mutual and reciprocal causes are predicated, some of the same things, as the merchant and the retailer are causes of gain; and sometimes one of one thing and others of another, as the sword and the flesh; for the one is the cause to the flesh of being cut, and the flesh to the sword of cutting. [It is well said,] “An eye for an eye, life for life.” For he who has wounded another mortally, is the cause to him of death, or of the occurrence of death. ”

“ For if it should turn out that though all causes have a beginning, there is in all of them a permanent element which had no beginning, this permanent element may with some justice be termed a first or universal cause, inasmuch as though not sufficient of itself to cause anything, it enters as a con-cause into all causation. ”

“ If God is the ultimate cause why should there be a causal connection in the orderly succession of events? The answer to this lies in the correct understanding of the nature of causation. Nothing causes anything. ”

“ Fallacies of cause occur in every hour of waking life. We attribute effects to wrong causes. We are especially liable to this from the fact that both cause and effect are conditions, and causation is a change of condition from an antecedent to a consequent. ”

“ The conditions of every causation are multifarious as we look at them in a regressus of causes or a progressus of effects, and as the mind of the individual can make but one judgment at a time, it may be that the one of the causes or effects which is considered, is in fact a trivial element in the causation, for in all our language we are accustomed to speak of one of the causes as the special cause, for it must be the special one in consideration. ”

“ It is now time I should come to the grand revolution of my destiny, to the catastrophe which has divided my life in two parts so different from each other, and, from a very trifling cause, produced such terrible effects. ”

“ But it may be said, we have not any such Idea of Cause, implying necessary connexion with effect, and a quality by which this connexion is produced. 176 We see nothing but the succession of events; and by cause we mean nothing but a certain succession of events;—namely, a constant, unvarying succession. Cause and effect are only two events of which the second invariably follows the first. We delude ourselves when we imagine that our idea of causation involves anything more. ”

“ Where the present and the future are not opposed, of course there can be no question. I am here, therefore, referring only to cases, such as those which I have been considering, in which the endurance of a present pain or inconvenience will be the cause of a future benefit, or the gratification of a present desire will lead to eventual evil. ”

“ But this turn of men’s thoughts shows that they see in events a connexion which is not mere succession. They see in cause and effect, not merely what does, often or always, precede and follow, but what must precede and follow. The events are not only conjoined, they are connected. The cause is more than the prelude, the effect is more than the sequel, of the fact. The cause is conceived not as a mere occasion; it is a power, an efficacy, which has a real operation. ”

“ John Stuart Mill regarded cause as embracing all the antecedents to an event. Hazard, Man a Creative First Cause, 12-15, shows that, as at any given instant the [pg 815] whole past is everywhere the same, the effects must, upon this view, at each instant be everywhere one and the same. “The theory that, of every successive event, the real cause is the whole of the antecedents, does not distinguish between the passive conditions acted upon and changed, and the active agencies which act upon and change them; does not distinguish what produces, from what merely precedes, change.” ”

“ Does he not hold the doctrine that there can be no effect, mental or physical, without an adequate cause? and that mental states, faculties, and idiosyncrasies, that are the result of gradual development and life-long—or even ancestral—habit, cannot be suddenly changed by any known or imaginable cause? ”

“ Can we have here one of those blind and extreme precautions which, ignoring the cause of the evil, overstep the remedy; and, in the endeavour to prevent an unfortunate accident, bring about a catastrophe? ”

“ The influence of the First Cause is universal, that is to say, it produces all creatural acts without exception,—necessary and free, good and bad,—because no secondary cause has power to act unless it is set in motion by the motor primus. ”

“ We may go back a hundred, a thousand, a million times, but if the last cause reached be not truly a first cause, an uncaused cause, the idea of cause in our mind will be as unsatisfied at the end of our search as at the beginning, and the whole process of investigation will be aimless and meaningless. ”

“ The necessity of a first cause being shown, and it being evident that therefore this cause is uncreated and self-existent, and independent of any other, the conclusion is next drawn that its power must be infinite. ”

“ What we term "but-for" cause is the least rigorous standard that is consistent with the approach to causation our precedents describe. If a motive is not a but-for cause of an event, then by definition it did not make a difference to the outcome. ”

“ But notwithstanding the series of the succession of causes cannot be followed in a retrospective succession up to the self-existent or eternal cause, it is nevertheless a perpetual and conclusive evidence of a God.—For a succession of causes considered collectively, can be nothing more than effects of the independent cause, and as much dependent on it as those dependent causes are upon one another ”

“ If we regard the fulfilment of our purpose as contingent upon any circumstances, past, present, or future, we are not making use of first cause; we have descended to the level of secondary causation, which is the region of doubts, fears, and limitations, all of which we are impressing upon the universal subjective mind with the inevitable result that it will build up corresponding external conditions. ”

“ No two persons—that is to say, human causes—present exactly the same effects. Every fact evolved will differ more or less. And, lastly, every cause is manifested as a unit by its occupation or pervasion of a given space. ”

“ Will you say, that when one event precedes another, the one which comes first is the effect, and the one which follows afterwards is the cause? This is not the way in which men reason on the ordinary affairs of life ”

“ These acts are so numerous and come from so many different emotions and motives, that often the cause is obscure and the explanation not easy to find. Still here, as everywhere in Nature, nothing can happen without a cause, and even where limited knowledge does its best and cannot find causes, our recognition of the connection between cause and effect and the all-inclusiveness of law can leave no doubt that complete knowledge would bring complete understanding. ”

“ It is manifest, therefore, that, if we are to attempt to ascend to the Supreme Cause—if we are to try to frame an idea of the Cause of all these subordinate causes;—we must conceive it as more different from any of them, than the most diverse are from each other;—more elevated above the highest, than the highest is above the lowest. ”

“ When we read that 'the succession of events is an endless chain of effects which are in their turn causes of new effects,' what is meant is sequence, and for 'cause' and 'effect' the terms 'antecedent' and 'consequent' should have been employed. ”

“ The same can be said of other beings whether they affect other things or be affected. Such process of causation goes on, and to maintain that this process goes on indefinitely is manifestly absurd. Thus such a chain of causation must of necessity lead eventually to Him who is the Ever-Living, the All-Powerful, who is Self-Dependent and the Ultimate Cause. ”

“ By farther degrees we learn such a use of the words cause and effect as to call nothing a cause, whose cause, or preceding circumstance, we can see, denominating all such things mere effects, all others causes. ”

“ And this can only be done by psychological deduction, through effect back to cause. If the results of an action produce pain and sorrow and evil, then the action—which is cause—must be bad. And, as there is nothing new under the sun—and all actions you would be likely to commit have already been committed by others in the past—you can get a general idea as to their probable result. But, above all other sides, the one to be examined is the effect upon the community. ”

“ We have already seen that a difficulty of the same kind, which arises in the contemplation of causes and effects considered as forming an historical series, drives us to the assumption of a First Cause, as an Axiom 252 to which our Idea of Causation in time necessarily leads. ”

“ That we do, in fact, apply the Idea of Cause in a more extensive manner than could be justified, if it were derived from experience only, is easily shown. For from the principle that everything must have a cause, we not only reason concerning the succession of the events which occur in the progress of the world, and which form the course of experience; but we infer that the world itself must have a cause;—that the chain of events connected by common causation, must have a First Cause of a nature different from the events themselves. ”

“ When the action of each and all is the necessary and sufficient cause of the whole damage. This condition is fulfilled when one commands or counsels an unjust act and another in consequence performs it. ”

“ Surely, there is a set purpose pervading the universe. The uniform succession of events is not at random. There is no such thing as chance. Here again it may be asked: If God is the efficient cause, how will you account for actions attributed to man in the scriptures? Are we to believe that there are two causes for one effect? My answer to this will be that the word cause is vaguely understood. ”

“ All the visible manifestations of human life, then, are effects; and as such, although they may possess a reflex action, they can never be causes, but must remain forever what they are—dead effects, galvanized into life by an enduring and profound cause. ”

“ The cases in which society is voluntarily shunned or forsaken are as rare as the cases of congenital disease or deformity; and for every such instance there may generally be assigned some grave, if not sufficient, cause. ”

“ What do you mean by the words 'the good cause?' We are defending at this moment, in England, five or six causes, which does not prevent every one from considering his own not only as the good cause, but as the best. ”

“ If the Will is a first cause, the influences brought to bear upon it by its relation to other causes—and in virtue of which it is constituted, not only a cause primal, but also a cause rational and moral—these influences differ toto coelo from those which are exercised by any members in a series of secondary causes upon the next succeeding causes. ”

“ When we discover some cause, which, under similar circumstances, always produces a similar result, we need not hesitate to consider such discovery as the revelation of his will, his law touching its action and the effects produced; and by comparing the general tendency of the effect produced with the previously revealed laws and will of God in relation to a particular matter, we are permitted to form some conclusion whether the cause producing the effect exists and acts in conformity with his general providence towards the matter or subject in question. ”

“ Previously contemplating and Meditating that the cause we were contending for, was a just cause, and a cause that all mankind ought to be interested in. Having meditated on all these things, I thought myself in duty bound, to suffer with patience & fortitude, with my fellow prisoners in my country’s cause. ”

“ Every result has its cause, and it is surely our duty, as far as observation and reason can guide us, to discover the causes which operate against us. The great majority of the afflictions and misfortunes which befall us are punishments for the breakage of some law, the committal of some sin physical or moral, and this being the case, it behoves us to find out what law has been transgressed, what the nature of the sin committed. ”

“ And in practice, that particular condition is usually styled the cause, whose share in the matter is superficially the most conspicuous, or whose requisiteness to the production of the effect we happen to be insisting on at the moment. So great is the force of this last consideration, that it sometimes induces us to give the name of cause even to one of the negative conditions. ”

“ We seek its cause, as we do that of all other secondary causes; until at last we reach the only position in which there is mental rest, an infinite cause of all causes, the primordial and ultimate reality of all being. ”