Stolen Legacy

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(3) Final Cause, is that for which everything exists. Everything has a purpose and that purpose is the final cause. A final cause always implies intelligence: but this is not always true in the case of the efficient Cause.

Consequently in the realm of nature, every being or living organism is the complex effect of four causes:--

(1) The substance out of which it is made (i.e., material cause).

(2) The type or idea, according to which the embryo tends to develop (i.e., formal cause).

(3) The act of creation or generation (i.e., efficient cause).

(4) The purpose or end for which the organism is created (i.e., final cause). In other words, matter, type, creation and purpose are the four principles which underlie all existing things.

(B. D. Alexander's History of Philosophy, p. 97-100; Aristotle, Meta. I, 3; Wm. Turner's History of Philosophy, p. 136140. Alfred Weber's Hist. of Phil., p. 80-84).

III. Doctrines concerning the existence of God.

(1) Although motion is eternal, there cannot be an indefinite series of movers and the moved, therefore there must be One, the first in the series which is unmoved (proton kinoun akineton) i.e., The Unmoved Mover.

(2) The actual is antecedent to the potential for although last in appearance, is really first in nature. Therefore before all matter and the composition of actual and potential, pure actuality must have existed. Therefore actuality is the cause of all things that exist and since it is pure actuality, its life is essentially free from all material conditions. It is the thought of thought, the absolute spirit, who dwells in eternal peace and self enjoyment, who knows himself and the absolute truth, and is in need of neither action nor virtue.

(3) God is one, for matter is the principle of plurality, and the First Intelligence is free from material conditions. His life is contemplative thought: neither providence nor will is