Extrinsic Causes

Article 3. Extrinsic Causes

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 efficient causality is an object daily and hourly experienced and talked about. From the child who asks, “What makes it do that ?” to the scientist investigating the “behavior” of electrons; from the housewife inquiring into the capabilities of a new cook to the politician laying a plan of campaign; from the mechanic at work on a motor to the psychiatrist at work on a moron, the quest of efficient causes and the discussion of efficient causality goes ceaselessly on.

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 will accept no testimony but such as is furnished by the senses), and the positivists (who are much at one with the sensists, and demand the positive evidence of sentient experience for what they will accept) deny the existence of true efficient causes in the world. The sensists reduce efficient causality to a succession of events, denying the intimate connection of dependency of effect on cause. The positivists rule the whole question out of court, for they say that efficient causality is a metaphysical concept purely subjective in character (which means, practically, that it is a figment of fancy) and has no place in the domain of positive science.

Against all these theorists we assert the reality of efficient causality in the world around us. We declare that finite beings, creatures, are true efficient causes. We do not say that causality can be investigated in itself with the aid of microscope or chemical retort; we are willing to admit that it is a thing recognized by the mind, and not by the senses; but we declare that it is a thing which is really there. We do not assert that creatures are self-existent and self-sufficient in their activity as true efficient causes; no, we admit that they have been produced, they are effects, and they have been equipped by their own Efficient Cause (their Creator) with powers for efficient activity, and they are maintained in being and in function as they use these powers. But given existence, given powers, given God’s preserving and concurring activity with His creatures, we declare that creatures are true efficient causes, and that true efficient casuality exists, demonstrably, in this world of ours.

It would be a bold man, not to say a blind one, who should deny that the world exhibits to us a most astounding arrangement or order, and a most evident purpose. Who will deny that in the tiny tree or in the new-hatched bird there is a remarkable arrangement and balance of parts ? Who does not know that these parts, while most various and diverse in structure and function, all work together in a magnificent harmony of order which is for the benefit of the whole organism? We need not look at the magnificent order of the starry heavens, or study the accurate revolutions of the earth, to see order, harmony, balance, and purpose. We may see it in a blade of grass, in a flowing stream. We may find it in the beating of a heart and in the digesting of a dinner. It is everywhere. Things are arranged; things serve an end or purpose and their elements are arranged to achieve it. Now, if God is the sole Efficient Cause (as He is undoubtedly the First Efficient Cause, and the All-necessary Efficient Cause) what is the meaning of the complex structures of creatures ? Why should God make the eye if it is not required, since He does the seeing? Deny efficient causality to creatures, and you make nonsense of the beautiful order and purpose exhibited by the bodily world. And the mind of normal man refuses to make nonsense of what is so obviously meaningful, so significant, so beautiful, so important. Securus judicat orbis terra-rum; the whole human race does not go wrong on its reasoned conclusions from manifest data. It never has, not even when everybody (or nearly everybody) thought that the sun actually rises each morning, and that the earth is motionless and more or less flat. For this was a surf ace-judgment on mere appearances, and men soon got beneath the surface and corrected the judgment What we speak of now is no surface-judgment, no snap-decision on the nature of things, arrived at from appearances. This thing has been found to work out; it checks with experience; it meets the requirements of mind. The sensist who denies the connection between cause and effect, and reduces this to a mere succession of events, would have a hard time explaining his activity of putting food into his mouth to appease hunger. He cannot admit that the action has anything to do with causing the appeasement of his appetite. And surely, since it is an action in his own control, he might refuse to allow this charming succession to take place; but, for some opaque reason, he doesn’t. The positivist, who brushes efficient causality aside as a metaphysical dream of no scientific significance, will find it difficult to explain his position; for surely his reasons for his position are not items in the domain of positive science; his thoughts, judgments, arguments, are suprasensile themselves, and belong to the realm of what he calls metaphysics, and are therefore valueless to himself, and presumably fo others. Besides, were the positivist to argue with us, to “work upon us” to try to make converts of us, he would be engaging in an activity which looks alarmingly like the causality which he denies; for he wants to cause us to agree with him, to cause us to see the reasonableness (if any) of his position. Those who deny efficient causality to creatures in the world around us, inevitably tie themselves into contradictions.

Deny efficient causality to creatures, and you deny the order and purpose manifest in things. Deny this causality, and you stultify yourself by self-contradiction. Nay more: deny this causality, and you upset all human responsibility and all morality. For human responsibility, and morality, are based upon the freedom of choice (or free-will) which makes man the master of his deliberate and reasoned activity,—which makes man, in fact, the cause of his knowing and deliberate acts. But if man is not a true cause, then he is not the cause of his acts; then he is not free; then he is not responsible; then there is no use in laying down laws or in appealing to the moral code. Now, if anything is certain, the fact that a normal man is responsible is certain. In spite of theorists who have denied this patent fact, the world goes on recognizing it as the most evident of things. And even 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. It is manifestly absurd to deny human responsibility and to deny all moral obligations; and in the same measure it is absurd to deny efficient causality to creatures.

Another point. 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. The biologist tells us about the amoeba, but he has never seen the amoeba; he has seen only some of the little things; but the amoeba is an abstraction. The chemist tells us the constitution of water, but he has never seen water; he has merely seen this or that quantity of water; water as such or water in general (and it is of this that he speaks) is an abstraction of mind. The mathematician tells us the properties of the circle; but he has only dealt with some few illustrations of circle. Circle as such can be understood, but it cannot be sensed. Now this knowledge of mind, this making of abstractions, this recognizing of universal or general truths, is the whole sum and substance of science, even of the most positivistic and sensistic of sciences. But 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 ?

We must conclude,—reason and experience leave us no alternative,—that creatures are true efficient causes, and that they exercise causality in this bodily world.

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

J. 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 writer, for example, exercises his activity with the aid of pen or pencil. The instrumental efficient cause operates (exercises its causality) under the movement and direction of a principal cause. The pen or pencil which serves the writer is an instrumental cause. Notice that the whole effect (in qur example, the finished piece of writing) is attributable to both the principal cause and the instrumental cause, but in different respective ways. The writer wrote the whole letter; so did the pen. But the letter is, first and foremost, the writer’s; as an expression of thought it must be attributed to the writer alone; no one would praise the pen for high sentiments or graceful phrasing. But the letter is attributable to the pen as used by the writer, and as having a fitness or suitability to serve the writer in the activity of writing. The instrument thus 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.

5. 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 (that is, a free actor, doer, performer) 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; it tends by its nature to produce 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 strikes oil; the drilling is not by nature calculated to bring up oil in each case, but, in this case, it does so per accident. A man digging a grave uncovers buried treasure per accident. A hunter shoots a dog, mistaking it for a rabbit; he is the per accident cause of the killing of the dog, because he did not intend it.—The term per te means “of itself”; and the term per accident means “by accident.” A cause which of ittelf (that is, by its nature, or by the intention of a free agent) produces an effect is the per te cause of that effect; a cause which happens to produce an effect, although the cause is not naturally ordinated to the producing of this effect, or,—in case of a free agent acting as physical or moral efficient cause,—is not intentionally directed to the producing of this effect, is the per accident, or the accidental cause of the effect.

5. Proximate—remote. A proximate (or “next door”) efficient cause admits no medium between itself and its effect. A remote (or “farther off”) efficient cause has one or more mediate causes between itself and the effect. A thief is the proximate cause of the theft; the man who ordered the thief to steal, or showed him how to do it, is the remote cause. A disease may be the proximate cause of death; the contagion or infection which induced the disease is the remote cause. There is here an axiom of value for philosopher and moralist: causa causae est causa causati which is translated literally as, “The cause of a cause is the cause of what the latter produces.” We may translate the axiom freely thus, “The remote cause is a true contributor to the effect of the proximate cause.” Of course, the degree or measure of the contribution will depend upon the actual influence which comes through to the ultimate effect from the remote cause. A moral efficient cause is always a remote cause of the ultimate effect. Our little Catechism lists the “nine ways of being accessory to another’s sin,” and therein presents for our consideration a series of moral and remote efficient causes, and indicates that responsibility for the ultimate effect rests upon the remote cause as well as upon the proximate cause: causa causae est causa causati. Another way of expressing the truth of this axiom (as touching free agents) is this: qui facit per alium, facit per se, “He who does a thing through an agent or proxy or representative, does it himself.”

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 which belongs to a different species than that to which the cause belongs. Thus, “April showers bring May flowers”; the human sculptor produces a non-human statue.

Natural—Rational. A natural efficient cause

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(called agens per naturam, that is, “Acting by its nature”) is any necessary cause in the physical order.— A rational efficient cause (called agens per intellectum, that is, “Acting with understanding”) is a free cause, a cause which acts with knowledge and free choice.

p. In being—in becoming. A cause in being (or quantum ad esse, “in so far as being is concerned”) is a maintaining cause, a cause which holds or keeps a thing in existence as such a thing. Thus solidity of matter and force of cohesion of particles keep a statue in existence as this statue, once it is carved out; these things are the causes of the statue in being; they are causes of the statue quantum ad esse.—A cause in becoming (or quantum ad fieri, “in so far as coming into existence is concerned”) is an effecting cause, an efficient cause which brings its effect into existence. The sculptor (aided by examplar-cause and instrumental causes) is the cause which gives existence to the statue; he is the cause in becoming, or. the cause quantum ad fieri, of the statue. He is not the cause of the statue quantum ad esse or in being, for the statue may still be in existence, in esse, when the sculptor has been a thousand years in his grave. The sculptor gives the statue being; he is not required to keep it in being, to give it permanence.—Sometimes the cause in becoming is required to keep the effect permanent, and then it is also the cause in being of that effect. Thus, fire is necessary to make water hot and to keep water hot; it is the cause of heat both in fieri and in esse,

b) The Final Cause

As we have seen, the term final comes from the Latin noun finis, and the adjective finalis, which mean, respectively, “end” and “having reference or relation to an end.” The “end” here indicated is “end-in-view,” purpose, goal, aim. A final cause is an end to be achieved which, so to speak, invites the efficient cause to get to work and achieve it. That which makes the production of an effect desirable is the final cause of that effect. A final cause is therefore defined as that on account of which or for the sake of which a thing is done.

The Greek word telos is the same in meaning as the Latin finis. Those with a preference for Greek derivatives (and these, by the way, are mostly the same people who decry the teaching of Greek as useless and old-fashioned) like to speak of the science of final causes or finality as teleology. And any explanation or argument which views a thing with reference to its end, purpose, or goal, is called teleological. We may mention in passing that the lovers of Greek terms like to speak of the whole body of doctrine on causes as aetiology, a word which derives from the Greek aitia “cause,” and logos “science.” Be not amazed, therefore, if, when next you are ill, your physician discourses overpoweringly upon the aetiological factors of your indisposition. He means no harm. He is merely talking about what made you sick.

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, or pays out money to get rid of debts, 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; such is the tendency in a plant to grow to maturity. But extrinsic finality is something that affects things from outside. The tendency of the billiard ball to reach the pocket towards which it is driven is extrinsic; there is nothing in the ball itself which makes it tend to roll into that pocket. Intrinsic finality is an inner tendency of things; extrinsic finality is a direction given them by forces outside themselves, forces which do not meet any natural requirement of the things directed.

We have noticed that the existence of efficient causality has been denied or doubted by mistaken theorists; final causality has been even more wildly denied and more widely doubted. The materialists who deny the existence of everything but matter and its physical and chemical processes can find no such thing as final causality in their lists of physical powers and chemical elements, and so they deny such finality utterly. The positivists who reduce all activity in bodies to mechanical movements can see no necessity for asserting the existence of final causes. Descartes (1596-1650) and his followers make God the sole efficient cause of activities in the universe, and so deny intrinsic causality to creatures. Such theorists are unfortunate; they wed themselves to a scheme or a philosophy, and then force reality to meet the requirements of the scheme. They cut heads to fit hats. Certain modern scientists of name follow this system.

Against these theorists stand the solid body of human common sense, the facts of universal experience, and the clear reasoning of the greatest philosophers. 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. In their respective manifestation of the glory of God, the trees never “change pulpits.” The most positivistic of scientists relies on this constancy of nature in all his investigations and findings and conclusions. Now, this constancy, this determinateness of natural agents (that is, actors, doers, performers, active powers) in the producing of effects is plain evidence that the producing of such effects is what they are for. For the producing of such effects there is in the agents an inner drive, force, energy, power,—call it what you will,—which is neither more nor less than a tendency towards an end. The agents act in conformity with that tendency. In other words, they “act on account of an end”; they exhibit finality in their action; they manifest the existence of an end to be achieved, which is a final cause of their activity. Notice that the tendency of natural agents to produce determinate and constant effects is an inner tendency, an intrinsic finality. Therefore we declare that the commonest experience acquaints us with the fact that things in the world about us tend to their ends by a true intrinsic finality. 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.” If the apple-tree were subject to no determinateness in activity, it would produce pears as readily as apples, or watermelons, or strawberries, or all sorts of fruit together. St. Thomas goes on, “For an agent to produce a determinate effect, it must be itself determined to something certain which has the character of an end.”

As for knowing agents,—that is, animals and men, —the case for finality is, as the detective stories say, “open and shut”; it is manifest. Animals are guided by instinctive knowledge towards certain activities and objects as desirable; in other words, they act towards ends; they exhibit intrinsic finality; they manifest to us the existence of final causes. And man, in many of his activities, proposes to himself the end he hopes to achieve; he intends an end knowingly and willingly. Of course, animals and men are subject to many determinate activities which are uninfluenced by knowledge, but which proceed to their ends by natural execution; such, for instance, are the activities of growth, of heart action, of digestion.

Now, if every agent acts to an end, this end is either ultimate or it is a step in the direction of a further end; in other words, it is a definite end of the whole activity, or it is a means towards a remote end. For ends are connected and related one to another like steps in a stairway. A person ascending the stairs mounts the first step, not for its own sake, but in view of those higher up; and all of the steps are taken in turn, from first to last, in view of the upper floor the climber wishes to reach. Thus, in a series of ends, there is ever an ultimate end which gives meaning to the whole series. Hence, an agent, acting towards an end, is. acting towards an ultimate end. In Ethics, a department of philosophy, we prove that man, in every deliberate and free act, acts towards an ultimate end which is the summum bonum or Supreme Good in the achievement of which he tends to attain supreme happiness.

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

I. 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, for example, when an alms is given to relieve poverty; for relief of poverty is its own natural effect, and it is that effect which the giver intends. Often, however, the end of the agent is different from the end of the work, as in the examples given above, and as in the case of the politician who gives alms so that he may win loyalty and votes. Even a politician, however, may have “mixed motives,” and may have as partial end the relief of poverty, and as partial end the securing of votes.

2. Proximate—intermediate—ultimate. These terms are self-explanatory. The youth who enters college, intending to follow a course in arts, and then go to a university to study medicine and become a physician, presents us with illustrations of all three ends. He enters college, and as he takes up the work of his freshman year, he intends to pass his examinations and be promoted to the sophomore class. That is his immediate purpose, his proximate end. Of course, even on his first day in college, he intends to pass through the sophomore class to the junior class, and thence to the senior class, and thence to the university. These ends are, at the moment, not proximate but remote. The youth intends ultimately to be a physician. That is the ultimate end in the series here considered. The ultimate end is the most remote of the remote ends. The other remote ends lie between the proximate and the ultimate end, and hence they are called intermediate. Notice that all the ends except the ultimate end (holding our view strictly to this series, and considering the series definitely closed with the achievement of the doctor’s degree) are willed and intended, 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 which is the desire of the young collegian’s heart, 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, which are here given in the order of the English terms just named: finis qui; finis cui; finis quo. The youth wants the doctor’s degree (this is the finis qui, the end which he intends); he wants it for his own use and purposes and benefit (this is the end for which, the finis cui); and he wills, as necessary intermediate ends,—or means,—that which will win the degree, namely, work and study (these constitute the finis quo, the end by which). The first of these ends {finis qui) is the objective end, the object aimed at. The second (finis cui) is subjective; it is what the acting subject wants the object for. The third (finis quo) is the formal end; it is that by which the object is formally achieved, is achieved as such. To illustrate again: A man wants to go to heaven, that is, he wants the Supreme Good we call God (this is _the objective end) _; he wants for himself the happiness of possessing the Supreme Good (this is his _subjective end) _; and he wants to do what will get him the objective and subjective ends, namely, he wants to live in God’s grace and exercise virtues (this is the formal end).

The causality of the final cause or the end 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 or has true causality. 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 exe~ cutione. 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. A man going upstairs intends to reach the second floor; he intends that first or he would not put foot on even the lowest step; but the arrival on the second floor is the last step of all: first in intention, last in attainment.

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, wit media. The man who says he would like to live a better life but cannot, is not telling the truth. There are means (which are intermediate ends in the series that lead to a better life) which will serve him to achieve his end; if he wills the end, let him will these means. If he does not will the means, but surrenders in the face of difficulties, we know he does not really will the end itself. The converse of this axiom is also true: “He who wills what naturally tends to an end, wills the end itself.” A man may keep questionable company; he may be in constant danger of moral calamity, and he may say that he doesn’t will evil or sin. The simple reply to his statement is that he lies. He wills what will naturally bring sin, and therefore he wills the sin.

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.