S12 A BRIEF 6CfIEME or ONTOLOGY. 3. Another manifest distinction of final causes is into such as areprivate and concealed, or such as are public and avowed. 4. There is another distinction which the schools call finis cujus, i. e. the end or designof the workman, andfinis cut which is the end or design of the work. A clock-maker's design is gain, but the design of theclock is to shew the hour. I. Query, Are brutes influenced by final causes ? Their actions look -very like it. But doth not acting for some design or end imply reasoning ? Is this reasoning in themselves or in their Maker only ? What is it then in the brutes themselves ? Can mere instinct or mechanism perform all these operations .> 2. Is it not an evident truth that all causes must have a being before they can act, at least in order of nature though not always in time ? But may not many suasive causes act before they exist ? as for instance ; a thief is tempted to provide a ladder to- day because there will be an opportunity at night to come over the garden wall : And do not final causes always act before they exist, since the action of the efficient is designed to produce their existence as the effect ? Answer. All suasive causes act by the idea ofthem existing in the mind, whether the things themselves exist or no. 1st Note, The end and the means are mutually cause and effect to each other. When the end is considered as a suasive cause, the means are the effect ; but when the end is considered as the effect, the means are an instrumental or subordinate efficient cause under the influence of the principal efficient. 2. The end reconciles the agent to those means which may be painful and unpleasant, and it regulates and limits the use of means. A sick man who seeks health is persuaded to use blisters or bitter potions, and his use of them is regulated and limited by the view of health. 3. In the series of final causes subordinate to each other, that which is last in execution is generally .first or chief in the in- tention ; but it is not always so ; for when the chief end is obtained, lesser ends may be sometimes pursued. I retire into the country chiefly for my health ; but when I am well I design also to visit my friends there, and I seek my health partly with that design. Besides these four kinds of causes whichhave a plain, a posi- tive and direct influence upon the effect, there are some other principles which also have their distinct sorts of influence, though not in so positive and direct a manner : Yet they have been dignified with the title of causes for want of a fitter name. The chief of them are, a deficient cause, a permissive cause, and Ja condition. I. A deficient cause is when the effect owes its existence in a great measure to the absence of something which would have
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=