Ontology, or the Theory of Being

by P. Coffey

There are two ways, however, of conceiving this influence as permeating the universe. The conception of final causality in general is, as we shall see, the conception of acting for an end, from a motive, with a purpose, plan or design for the attainment of something. It implies arrangement, ordination, adaptation of means to ends ([55]). Now at least there appears to be, pervading the universe everywhere and directing its activities, such an adaptation. The admirable equilibrium of forces which secures the regular motions of the heavenly bodies; the exact mixture of gases which makes our atmosphere suitable for organic life; the distance and relative positions of the sun and the earth, which secure conditions favourable to organic life; the chemical transformations whereby inorganic elements and compounds go to form the living substance of plants and are thus prepared for assimilation as food by animal organisms; the wonderfully graded hierarchy of living species in the animate world, and the mutual interdependence of plants and animals; the endless variety of instincts which secure the preservation and well-being of living individuals and species; most notably the adaptability and adaptation of other mundane creatures to human uses by man himself,—innumerable facts such as these convince us that the things of the universe are useful to one another, that they are constituted and disposed in relation to one another as if they had been deliberately chosen to suit one another, to fit in harmoniously together in mutual co-ordination and subordination so that by their interaction and interdependence they work out a plan or design and subserve as means to definite ends. This suitability of things relatively to one another, this harmony of the nature and activity of each with the nature and activity of every other, we may designate as extrinsic finality. The Creator has willed so to arrange and dispose all creatures in conditions of space and time that such harmonious but purely extrinsic relations of mutual adaptation do de facto obtain and continue to prevail between them under His guidance.

But are these creatures themselves, in their own individual natures, equally indifferent to any definite mode of action, so that the orderly concurrence of their activities is due to an initial collocation [pg 406] and impulse divinely impressed upon them from without, and not to any purposive principle intrinsic to themselves individually? Descartes, Leibniz and certain supporters of the theory of atomic dynamism regarding the constitution of matter, while recognizing a relative and extrinsic finality in the universe in the sense explained, seem to regard the individual agencies of the universe as mere efficient causes, not of themselves endowed with any immanent, intrinsic directive principle of their activities, and so contributing by mere extrinsic arrangement to the order of the universe. Scholastic philosophers, on the contrary, following the thought of Aristotle,[502] consider that every agency in the universe is endowed with an intrinsic principle of finality which constantly directs its activities towards the realization of a perfection which is proper to it and which constitutes its intrinsic end ([45-46]). And while each thus tends to its own proper perfection by the natural play of its activities, each is so related to all others that they simultaneously realize the extrinsic purpose which consists in the order and harmony of the whole universe. Thus the extrinsic and relative finality whereby all conspire to constitute the universe a cosmos is secondary and posterior and subordinate to the deeper, intrinsic, immanent and absolute finality whereby each individual created nature moves by a tendency or law of its being towards the realization of a good which perfects it as its natural end.

In order to understand the nature of this intrinsic and extrinsic finality in the universe, and to vindicate its existence against the philosophy of Mechanism, we must next analyse the concept, and investigate the influence, of what are called final causes.

107. The Concept of Final Cause; its Objective Validity in all Nature. Classification of Final Causes.—When we speak of the end of the year, or the end of a wall, we mean the extreme limit or ultimate point; and the term conveys no notion of a cause. Similarly, were a person to say “I have got to the end of my work,” we should understand him to mean simply that he had finished it. But when people act deliberately and as intelligent beings, they usually act for some conscious purpose, with some object in view, for the achievement or attainment of something; they continue to act until they have attained this object; when they have attained it they cease to act; its attainment synchronizes with the end of their action, taking this term in the sense just illustrated. Probably this is the reason why the term [pg 407] end has been extended from its original sense to signify the object for the attainment of which an intelligent agent acts. This object of conscious desire induces the agent to seek it; and because it thus influences the agent to act it verifies the notion of a cause: it is a final cause, an end in the causal sense. For instance, a young man wishes to become a medical doctor: the art of healing is the end he wishes to secure. For this purpose he pursues a course of studies and passes certain examinations; these acts whereby he qualifies himself by obtaining a certain fund of knowledge and skill are means to the end intended by him. He need not desire these preparatory labours for their own sake; but he does desire them as useful for his purpose, as means to his end: in so far as he wills them as means he wills them not for their own sake but because of the end, propter finem. He apprehends the end as a good; he intends its attainment; he elects or selects certain acts or lines of action as means suitable for this purpose. An end or final cause, therefore, may be defined as something apprehended as a good, and which, because desired as such, influences the will to choose some action or line of action judged necessary or useful for the attainment of this good. Hence Aristotle's definition of end as τὸ οὖ ἕνεκα: id cujus gratia aliquid fit: that for the sake of which an agent acts.

The end understood in this sense is a motive of action; not only would the action not take place without the agent's intending the end, showing the latter to be a conditio sine qua non; but, more than this, the end as a good, apprehended and willed, has a positive influence on the ultimate effect or issue, so that it is really a cause.

Man is conscious of this “finality,” or influence of final causes on his own deliberate actions. As an intelligent being he acts “for ends,” and orders or regulates his actions as means to those ends; so much so that when we see a man's acts, his whole conduct, utterly unrelated to rational ends, wholly at variance and out of joint with the usual ends of intelligent human activity, we take it as an indication of loss of reason, insanity. Furthermore, man is free; he chooses the ends for which he acts; he acts electivé propter fines.

But in the domain of animal life and activity is there any evidence of the influence of final causes? Most undoubtedly. Watch the movements of animals seeking their prey; observe the wide domain of animal instincts; study the elaborate and [pg 408] intricate lines of action whereby they protect and foster and preserve their lives, and rear their young and propagate their species: could there be clearer or more abundant evidence that in all this conduct they are influenced by objects which they apprehend and seek as sensible goods? Not that they can conceive in the abstract the ratio bonitatis in these things, or freely choose them as good, for they are incapable of abstract thought and consequent free choice; but that these sensible objects, apprehended by them in the concrete, do really influence or move their sense appetites to desire and seek them; and the influence of an object on sense appetite springs from the goodness of this object ([44], [45]). They tend towards apprehended goods; they act apprehensivé propter fines.[503]

Finally, even in the domains of unconscious agencies, of plant life and inorganic nature, we have evidence of the influence of final causes. For here too we witness innumerable varied, complex, ever-renewed activities, constantly issuing in results useful to, and good for, the agents which elicit them: operations which contribute to the development and perfection of the natures of these agents ([46]). 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? Of course it would be mere unreflecting anthropomorphism to attribute to unconscious agencies a conscious subjection to the attracting and directing influence of such causes. But the recognition of such influence in this domain implies no naïve supposition of that sort. It does, however, imply this very reasonable view: that there must be some reason or ground in the nature or constitution of even an inanimate agent for its acting always in a uniform manner, conducive to its own development and perfection; that there must be in the nature of each and every one of the [pg 409] vast multitude of such agents which make up the whole physical universe a reason or ground for each co-operating constantly and harmoniously with all the others to secure and preserve that general order and regularity which enables us to pronounce the universe not a chaos but a cosmos. Now that ground or reason in things, whereby they act in such a manner—not indifferently, chaotically, capriciously, aimlessly, unintelligibly, but definitely, regularly, reliably, purposively, intelligibly—is a real principle of their natures, impressing on their natures a definite tendency, directive of their activities towards results which, as being suited to these natures, bear to these latter the relation of final causes. A directive principle need not itself be conscious; the inner directive principle of inanimate agents towards what is good for them, what perfects them, what is therefore in a true and real sense their end ([45], [46]), is not conscious. But in virtue of it they act as if they were conscious, nay intelligent, i.e. they act executivé propter fines.

Of course the existence of this principle in inanimate agencies necessarily implies intelligence: this indeed is our very contention against the whole philosophy of mechanism, positivism and agnosticism. But is this intelligence really identical with the agencies of nature, so that all the phenomena of experience, which constitute the cosmos or universe, are but phases in the evolution of One Sole Reality which is continually manifesting itself under the distinct aspects of nature and mind? Or is this intelligence, though virtually immanent in the universe, really distinct from it—really transcendent,—a Supreme Intelligence which has created and continues to conserve this universe and govern all its activities? This is a distinct question: it is the question of Monism or Theism as an ultimate interpretation of human experience.

We conclude then that what we call finality, or the influence of final causes, pervades the whole universe; that in the domain of conscious agents it is conscious, instinctive when it solicits sense appetite, voluntary when it solicits intelligent will; that in the domain of unconscious agencies it is not conscious but “natural” or “physical” soliciting the “nature” or “appetitus naturalis” of these agencies.