SYNOPSIS OF CHAPTER V.
The argument of this chapter turns upon the analysis of concrete processes carried on throughout human life; together with their correlations or correspondent factors visible in rerum naturâ. All these being complex activities, resolve themselves into series of simpler activities, which, though separable in thought, follow each other inseparably as real working elements of human or natural productions,—or of both.
In each productive process of Mankind, we perceive:—
1. A purpose conceived,—(the end or final cause.)
2. A power or force which has to be (a.) discovered and (b.) fitted to this human purpose.
2. (a.) This implies that the object in quest exists, or is capable of being evoked into active existence, as a Force or operative Law capable of producing real effects. Otherwise, it would be no auxiliary to Man. Viewed per se, and apart from its being fitted to his special purpose, it must therefore be a natural power or law, and answers to what Bacon calls a Form or Formal cause.[180]
(It is plain that human production requires some particular utilization of a producing force, wider in itself than this or any other ancillary application of its energies. Compare Bacon's philosophic observation[181] that the operative Form "deduces the given nature from some source of being which is inherent in more natures.")
2. (b.) A number of such powers, forces, laws, forms, present themselves to the intellectual eye of an inventor or producer. Possible fitness, (adaptability)—must therefore next be determined. And here the power is no longer considered separately, but in relation to some Formation.
In 2, therefore, we have (a) a simple fact or general law of Force;—and (b) a correlated fact, or specialized law of Production.