Download (PDF, 23.58MB) - Plurality Press

8 THE FOURFOLD HOOT. [CHAP. II.
alriai tie. refftrapEQ pia pev TO n ?iv elvai pia. tie TO nvwv OVTUV,
dvajKr) TOVTO etvat tripa. tie, ij TL TT/OUITOV tKivijtre TtTaprr) ce,
TO TIVOQ eviKa. 1
(Causes autem quatuor sunt: una quce
explicat quid res sit ; alter a, quam, si qucedam sint, necesse
est esse ; tertia, quce quid primum inovit ; quarta id, cujus
gratia.) Now this is the origin of the division of the causes
universally adopted by the Scholastic Philosophers, into
causce materiales, formales, efficientes et finales, as may be
seen in
"
" 2
Suarii disputationes metaphysicae
a real com
pendium of Scholasticism. Even Hobbes still quotes and
explains this division.3 It is also to be found in another
passage of Aristotle, this time somewhat more clearly and
fully developed ("
noticed in the book
Metaph." i. 3.) and it is again briefly
" De somno et c. 2. As for the
vigilia,"
vitally important distinction between reason and cause,
however, Aristotle no doubt betrays something like a con
ception of it in the
considerable length that knowing and proving that a thing
"
Analyt. post." i. 13, where he shows at
exists is a very different thing from knowing and proving
why it exists : what he represents as the latter, being know
of the reason.
ledge of the cause ; as the former, knowledge
If, however, he had quite clearly recognized the difference
between them, he would never have lost sight of it, but would
have adhered to it throughout his writings. Now this is not
the case ; for even when he endeavours to distinguish the
various kinds of causes from one another, as in the passages
I have mentioned above, the essential difference mooted in
the chapter just alluded to, never seems to occur to him
again. Besides he uses the term ainov indiscriminately
for every kind of cause, often indeed calling reasons of know-
1 " There are four causes : first, the essence of a thing itself; second,
the sine qua non of a thing j third, what first put a thing in motion ;
fourth, to what purpose or end a thing is tending." [Tr. s add.]
2 "
Suarii disputationes metaph." Disp. 12, sect. 2 et 3.
Hobbes,
" De
corpore," P. ii. c. 10, 7.