Quem non externæ pepulerunt fingere causæ
Materiæ fluitantis opus, verum insita summi
Forma boni livore carens: tu cuncta superno
Ducis ab exemplo, pulchrum pulcherrimus ipse
Mundum mente gerens, similique in imagine formans,
Perfectasq; jubens perfectum absolvere partes.
And St. Augustine l. 83. quest. 46. where (amongst other) he hath these words, Restat ergo ut omnia Ratione sint condita, nec eadem ratione homo qua equus; hoc enim absurdum est existimare: singula autem propriis sunt creata rationibus. But these ideæ Plato's Scholar Aristotle would not allow to make or constitute a different sort of cause from the formal or efficient, to which purpose he disputes, l. 7. Metaphysic. but he and his Sectators, and the Ramists also, agree (as the Author) that there are but the four remembred Causes: so that the Author, in affirming there are but four, hath no Adversary but the Platonists; but yet in asserting there are four (as his words imply) there are that oppose him, and the Schools of Aristot. and Ramus. I shall bring for instance Mr. Nat Carpenter, who in his Philosophia Libera affirmeth, there is no such cause as that which they call the Final cause: he argueth thus; Every cause hath an influence upon its effect: but so has not the End, therefore it is not a Cause. The major proposition (he saith) is evident, because the influence of a cause upon its effect, is either the causality it self, or something that is necessarily conjoyned to it: and the minor as plain, for either the End hath an influence upon the effect immediately, or mediately, by stirring up the Efficient to operate; not immediately, because so it should enter either the constitution or production, or conservation of the things; but the constitution it cannot enter, because the constitution is only of matter and form; nor the Production, for so it should concur to the production, either as it is simply the end, or as an exciter of the Efficient; but not simply as the end, because the end as end doth not go before, but followeth the thing produced, and therefore doth not concur to its production: if they say it doth so far concur, as it is desired of the agent or efficient cause, it should not so have an immediate influence upon the effect, but should onely first move the efficient. Lastly, saith he, it doth not enter the conservation of a thing, because a thing is often conserved, when it is frustrate of its due end, as when it's converted to a new use and end. Divers other Arguments he hath to prove there is no such cause as the final cause. Nat. Carpenter Philosoph. liber Decad. 3. Exercitat. 5. But for all this, the Author and he differ not in substance: for 'tis not the Author's intention to assert that the end is in nature præexistent to the effect, but only that whatsoever God has made, he hath made to some end or other; which he doth to oppose the Sectators of Epicurus, who maintain the contrary, as is to be seen by this of Lucretius which follows.
Illud in his rebus vitium vehementer et istum,
Effugere errorem vitareque premeditabor
Lumina ne facias oculorum clara creata