Extrinsic Causes

Article 3. Extrinsic Causes

a) The Efficient Cause　　b) The Final Cause

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a) The Efficient Cause

An efficient cause is one which by its own physical activity brings an effect into being. In nearly every casual reference to cause we mean efficient cause. And yet there have been, and now are, persons who deny the existence of such causes and such causality. In an earlier time, some men had the strangely twisted notion that it is impious to attribute any efficient causality to a creature; they declared that creatures are only the occasion, only the stage-setting, so to speak, for God who produces all effects. This doctrine of occasionalism was known as early as the 12th century, but had its most noted defender in Nicole Malebranche in the 17th and early 18th century. John Locke (1632–1704) and David Hume (1711–1776) and the sensists (who would limit all knowledge to sense perception) similarly deny efficient causality to creatures. Positivists deny it by reducing all causality to a constant conjunction of phenomena.

Against all such theorists we declare that creatures are true efficient causes, and that true efficient causality exists, demonstrably, in this world of ours — though creatures have been equipped by their own Efficient Cause (their Creator) with powers for efficient activity, and are maintained in being and in function as they use these powers.

Deny efficient causality to creatures, and you put a bomb under every laboratory in the world. Science goes up in fragments and in a reek of smoke. For all science begins with the action of the senses upon bodily reality around us, and from that point it ascends, by mental abstraction, to general or universal truths. Of what value is the knowledge or science derived in last analysis from the findings of sense, if sense-objects cannot act efficiently upon our senses and thus cause us to know them? And the determinist (who denies free-will and responsibility) forgets his theory when someone steals his silver spoons, and appeals to the police to catch the thief and punish him — which is evident folly, if the thief be not the responsible and true cause of his actions.

We distinguish many types of efficient causes. The following are important:

1. Primary — Secondary. God is the sole First or Primary Efficient Cause, for the definition of primary efficient cause is this: a cause which is wholly independent of other things; a cause which has, in no sense, a cause of its own. Creatures are secondary efficient causes; they depend upon the First Cause for their existence and their equipment and their function.

2. Principal — Instrumental. The principal efficient cause exercises its own activity with the aid of another cause which subserves that activity. The instrumental efficient cause operates under the movement and direction of a principal cause. Notice that the whole effect is attributable to both the principal cause and the instrumental cause, but in different respective ways. The letter written with a pen is, first and foremost, the writer’s; as an expression of thought it must be attributed to the writer alone. But the letter is attributable to the pen as used by the writer, as having a fitness or suitability to serve the writer in the activity of writing. The instrumental cause has its efficient causality in its disposition or fitness to serve a certain use, and this causality is actually exercised only under the transient application of the instrument to its use by the activity of the principal cause. An ancient axiom of law and moralist runs: causa causae est causa causati, “The cause of a cause is the cause of what the latter produces.” Another way of expressing this truth (as touching free agents) is: qui facit per alium, facit per se, “He who does a thing through an agent or proxy or representative, does it himself.”

3. Physical — Moral. A physical efficient cause is one that produces an effect by its own physical activity. A moral efficient cause (which is not an efficient cause properly so called, but as such by an extension of meaning) is one that exercises an influence on a free agent by means of command, persuasion, invitation, force of example. The free agent who is moved to action by such influences is the physical efficient cause of the action; the one who exercises such influences over the physical cause is the moral efficient cause of the action.

4. Per se — Per accidens. A per se efficient cause is one that tends by nature or intention to produce the effect that actually is produced. Fire is the per se efficient cause of light and heat. A hunter who shoots a rabbit is the per se efficient cause of the killing, because he intends it.—A per accidens efficient cause is one that produces an effect “by accident,” since it is either not such a cause as naturally produces this effect, or the effect is not intended. A man drilling a well for water who strikes oil is a per accidens efficient cause of the oil discovery.

5. Proximate — Remote. A proximate (or “next”) cause is the cause which immediately and directly produces the effect. A remote cause is a cause which produces the effect through the agency of other causes. An ancient axiom expresses the truth: causa causae est causa causati, “The remote cause is a true contributor to the effect of the proximate cause.”

6. Necessary — Free. A necessary cause is one that is compelled by nature to produce its effect when all conditions for it are fulfilled. Fire under dry chips is the necessary cause of flame. The sun is the necessary cause of daylight.—A free cause is one that can refrain from producing its effect when all conditions for it are fulfilled. A hungry man with appetizing food before him may still refuse to eat.

7. Univocal — Equivocal. A univocal cause produces an effect of the identical species to which itself belongs. Human parents are the univocal causes of their children.—An equivocal cause produces an effect of a species different from itself. The sculptor who carves a statue from marble is an equivocal cause of the statue.

b) The Final Cause

The fact that a thing is desirable makes it good; the fact that it is good makes things tend to it; the fact that things tend to it makes it an end or a final cause of the activity which seeks to attain it.

We notice a twofold tendency towards an end. A stream runs downhill, a magnet attracts iron filings, a tree has in it a drive towards maturity and fruitfulness. These things execute a tendency to an end without knowing anything about it. But when a dog goes after a bone; when a man instinctively reaches for a cup of water to slake his thirst, or plans to get a better job, we have examples of the execution of tendency with knowledge of the desirability of the end. Thus there are in the world two types of tendency towards an end: unknowing and natural tendency, and knowing tendency. The latter type is itself of two kinds, tendency born of sentient knowledge of the end as desirable, and tendency born of rational or intellectual knowledge of the end as desirable.

The tendency of things towards an end is called finality. In addition to unknowing and knowing finality, we discern finality that is intrinsic and finality that is extrinsic. Intrinsic finality is in things themselves and gives them a bent or bias or influence towards their end — such is the finality observable in fire as it tends to consume dry wood. Extrinsic finality is a direction given to things from forces outside themselves — such as the tendency of a billiard ball to reach the pocket towards which it is driven.

Final causality has been more widely denied than even efficient causality. The materialists who deny the existence of everything but matter and its physical and chemical processes can find no such thing as final causality. With St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, and the scholastics generally, we assert as true the ancient doctrine of Aristotle that creatures tend to their ends, and ultimately to a last end, by a true intrinsic finality, whether it be executed knowingly or unknowingly.

There is an old saying, omne agens agit propter finem, “Everything that acts, acts on account of an end.” The statement is not difficult to prove. For things that act have a determinate way of acting and tend steadily to produce determinate effects. The apple-tree has a way of producing apples, the pear-tree produces pears. The most positivistic of scientists relies on this constancy of nature in all his investigations. Now, this constancy, this determinateness of natural agents in the producing of effects is plain evidence that the producing of such effects is what they are for. St. Thomas says, “If the agent were not determined to the producing of a certain effect, it would not produce this effect rather than that.” And further: “For an agent to produce a determinate effect, it must be itself determined to something certain which has the character of an end.”

We distinguish various types or classes of ends. The following are important:

1. End of the act — End of the agent. The end of the act, or of the work (finis operis), is that towards which a thing or an activity tends by its own nature. The end of the act of burning up a book is the destruction of the book.—The end of the agent (finis operantis) is that which is intended by the free agent who exercises the activity or does the work. The end of the agent in the burning of a book may be the removal of bad literature from the reach of children; it may be the removal of damaging records; it may be the mere starting of a fire to fry bacon. Sometimes the two ends coincide, as when alms are given to relieve poverty. Often, however, the end of the agent is different from the end of the work.

2. Proximate — Intermediate — Ultimate. These terms are self-explanatory. The youth who enters college intending to become a physician presents us with illustrations of all three ends. He intends to pass his freshman examinations — his proximate end. He intends to pass through all four years — his intermediate ends. He intends ultimately to be a physician — the ultimate end in the series. Notice that all the ends except the ultimate end are willed not for themselves, but in view of their value as steps towards the ultimate end; in a word, proximate and intermediary ends are always means towards the ultimate end.

3. Natural — Supernatural. A natural end can be attained by the exercise of natural powers. A supernatural end can be achieved only by the aid of God’s grace. The doctor’s degree is a natural end. Eternal salvation is a supernatural end.

4. The end which — The end for which — The end by which. These ends are usually designated by Latin phrases: finis qui; finis cui; finis quo. The youth wants the doctor’s degree (finis qui, the end which he intends); he wants it for his own use and purposes and benefit (finis cui, the end for which); and he wills, as necessary intermediate ends, work and study (finis quo, the end by which). The first of these ends is the objective end, the object aimed at. The second is subjective; it is what the acting subject wants the object for. The third is the formal end; it is that by which the object is formally achieved.

The causality of the final cause consists in its attractiveness, its desirability — its good, in a word. For the real or the apparent good exercises an influence upon an agent, draws him weakly or strongly, invites him to the attainment of itself. Thus the end makes a true contribution to the agent’s activity (effect) and is a true cause. St. Thomas says, “The effectiveness of an efficient cause consists in doing; the effectiveness of a final cause consists in attracting.”

The final cause or the end is often called “the cause of causes.” For it is the end which draws the efficient cause into action; it sets the goal; it indicates suitable instrumental causes and exemplar-causes to aid the efficient cause in its work; it brings the agent to the task of using the material cause and determining the formal cause of the effect.

As regards ends intended (that is, final causes rationally known and willed) we say, “The end is first in the order of intention, and last in the order of execution”; finis est primus in intentione, ultimus in executione. The lad entering college to become a doctor has the doctor’s degree and status before him as his intention; it is the first and foremost influence in sending him to such a school and into such a course. But it is the last thing he achieves in the particular series of ends which culminates in his graduation and degree.

It is important for the philosopher and the moralist to ponder this axiom: “He who wills an end, wills the means necessary to achieve it”; qui vult finem, vult media. The converse of this axiom is also true: “He who wills what naturally tends to an end, wills the end itself.”

Summary of the Article

In this Article we have defined efficient cause and have vindicated the existence of true efficient causes (and efficient causality) in the world about us, taking issue on the point with the occasionalists, sensists, and positivists. We have shown that denial of real efficient causality to creatures is in conflict with reason and experience, and is disastrous in its effect upon human responsibility and morality, and upon science. We have distinguished many classes of efficient causes. We have learned the meaning of final cause or end, and have shown that the existence of final causality is a demonstrable fact in the world. We have evidenced the dictum, omne agens agit propter finem. We have distinguished various types of ends or final causes, and have dwelt upon some practical truths which our study has made manifest.