Disputationes metaphysicae

1. Reasons for doubting.—The first. The reason for doubting is, in the first place, that it is of the notion of cause that it be a principle, as is established from the definition handed down by us above; but the end is not a principle, for rather it is opposed to principle, as is established from the very name of end, and as Aristotle signifies, III Metaph., text 3.

2. The second.—Secondly, it is of the notion of real cause that it inflow per se and really into the effect, as was posited above in the definition of cause; but the end does not really inflow being into the effect; therefore it is not a cause. The minor is proved, because either the end inflows before it is, or after it already is; not the first, for what is not, what real influx can it have, since the foundation of all operation and likewise of all causality is being? Nor can the second be said, because when the end is, then the action and causality of the agent already ceases; therefore the causality of the end is not then necessary.

3. The third.—Thirdly, because nothing can be the real cause of itself; but the form, on the testimony of Aristotle, is the end of the natural generation by which the form itself is made, as health is the end of the healing by which it is acquired; therefore, inasmuch as it is end, it cannot have the true notion of real cause. You will say that the form is the end of the generation, which is distinguished from it. But against this, because nothing can be the real cause of the production of a thing unless it is also the cause of the thing produced, because the thing is not caused except through the action by which it is made; but the form cannot be the real cause of itself; therefore neither of the generation by which the form itself is made. Hence it is confirmed, for a real cause says a real relation to the effect; but the end is not capable of a relation of this kind, both because either when it causes it does not have real being, or when it has real being it neither causes nor is distinguished from the effect.

4. The fourth.—The fourth and chief reason for doubting is that the end can be considered either in the notion of a principle moving and alluring the agent to act, or in the notion of the terminus to which the action tends; for this twofold notion is commonly distinguished by the philosophers in the object of any power, namely, of motive and terminative object; and the same distinction has place in the end, which is the object of the will. But under neither notion can the end have the true notion of cause. And in the first place of the notion of terminus it seems manifest, both because as such it has rather the notion of effect than of cause; and as such it is the last thing of the action, not its origin; finally, as such it does not inflow, but rather the influx of the other causes tends to it. Next, neither under the other notion of mover can it have the notion of cause; for, as Aristotle thinks, I De Gener., text 55, the motion of the end is only metaphorical; it is not, therefore, true and real; therefore it does not suffice for real causality. And it is confirmed, first, because this metaphorical motion of the end is found also in God; for in truth God, on account of His goodness, by which His will is metaphorically moved or allured, communicates Himself to creatures, and yet it cannot be said that that end has true causality about God. And it is confirmed, secondly, because, if the end has the notion of cause only under this notion, then at least with respect to natural agents the end cannot be a real cause, because it cannot move or allure them to the love of itself.

5. And hence arises the fifth difficulty, because hence the whole foundation is overthrown on account of which this genus of cause was introduced by the philosophers, namely, because natural agents do not operate by chance or fortuitously, but tend by their actions to determinate ends. For from this foundation or indication it is only gathered that natural things have definite termini of their natural propensions and inclinations; for this is enough for them to operate determinate effects not by chance but per se, even if no other genus of causality intervenes. As the theologians say that the eternal Father tends per se and definitely (so to speak) through generation to such a terminus, namely to this Son, not from the causality of the end, but from the determination of nature. And in natural things a stone by natural inclination tends definitely to the lower place, even if that place has no genus of causality about that motion, but only the notion of the terminus to which the stone has natural propension. And the same can be said of one operating through elicited appetite, whether from necessity or freely, namely, that he is moved by an elicited motion towards the object proposed to him, because such motion is consonant with the natural inclination of the power itself to such object, without other causality of that object on such act; therefore there is no sufficient foundation for us to attribute to the end the true notion of cause.

6. The sixth.—Let the sixth and last difficulty be that it cannot be sufficiently explained what, or about what, the end causes. For either it causes something in the agent itself, and this cannot be said universally, because, although in created voluntary agents it could be defended in some way, yet not in natural agents, nor in God, who is the uncreated voluntary agent. Or it causes something in the effect itself, and this has universally the difficulty touched upon above in the third argument, and moreover has a special difficulty in created voluntary agents, because the whole causality of the end, whatever it may be, seems to be concerned with the wills of such agents; but about their effects only remotely and per accidens; and therefore the effects will not have a proper final cause.

Resolution of the question

7. Nevertheless a certain conclusion is to be laid down, that the end is a true, proper and real cause. This is a received dogma and as it were a first principle in philosophy and theology; Aristotle taught it, II Metaph., c. 3, and bk. XI, c. 1, and II Phys., c. 1 and following; and before him Plato had taught it in the Phaedo, where he reports Socrates to the same effect; indeed he wills the end alone to be a cause, perhaps by antonomasia, that is, the first and chief, of which we shall speak below in the comparison of causes. The reason, however, can be taken first from the common mode of speaking about the end and about cause; for the end is said to be that for the sake of which something is made or is; for in this way Aristotle everywhere describes the end; but it is established that that particle for the sake of signifies causality; for each thing is said to have being on account of its cause; therefore it is a sign that the end has the notion of cause. Moreover, the efficient cause, unless it acts rashly, must act for the sake of something; therefore the effect of the efficient cause too, in order that it can be made per se by it, intrinsically demands to be made for the sake of something; therefore such effect, just as it depends per se on the efficient, as that by which it is made, so in its genus it depends per se on something for the sake of which it is made; but that is the end; therefore it depends per se on the end; therefore, conversely, the end is the true cause of that thing which is made for the sake of the end.

8. But in this matter it is not so much necessary to multiply reasons as to expound the thing, so that the difficulties may be solved and the causality of the end, which is obscure, may be declared; for the difficulties posited at the beginning tend to this, not that a certain thing be called into doubt. In order that this be done more distinctly, however, let us distinguish three agents for the sake of an end. The first and supreme is the uncreated intellectual agent, which is God alone. In the second and middle order are created intellectual agents, among which men are better known to us, and therefore we shall always speak of them, although the reason is the same of the created intelligences. In the third and lowest order are natural agents or those lacking intellect, although among them there is some difference between those which have sense and appetite and the rest, which also we shall indicate in its place. The causality of the end, then, although in its way it has place in the actions of all these agents, yet in created intellectual agents is better known to us, and has a certain greater propriety and special mode, and therefore in them we shall peculiarly declare this causality of the end and dispatch the difficulties arising about it; but afterwards we shall speak of the other agents. That in agents created with intellect and will, then, the causality of the end intervenes, a sufficient argument is taken from human actions. For it is established to us by experience that we intend, when we operate in a human mode, that is, freely and rationally, some certain end to which we direct our actions and on account of which we choose means; we are moved, therefore, by the end, both to the love or intention of itself, and to choosing and executing means on account of it; but this motion is something in the nature of things; for it is not something imaginary or feigned by the intellect; and it is some genus of causality, since it is the origin of real operations; the end, therefore, is a true and real cause. And hence too it is established by the way that this causality has place most of all in intellectual agents, because they can most of all know the end and the means, and the order of one to the other, and the proper notion of each.

The reasons for doubting are solved

9. The arguments made at the beginning partly demand difficulties proper pertaining to God and to the lowest natural agents, partly inculcate those things which can be treated of a cause; but these are all those which are treated of the other causes, as Cajetan intimated, I, q. 5, a. 4, and II-II, q. 17, a. 5, namely, what things can cause finally, through what, or what is to them the notion of causing, either as principal notion or as proximate. Likewise what is the necessary condition, what the effect; in what, finally, its causality consists, which here is the most obscure of all. Lest, then, we involve and confuse all these things, they will have to be treated distinctly in the following sections; therefore the exact solution of the arguments will have to be awaited up to the end of the disputation. Now we shall run through each cursorily.

10. The first.—The end truly a principle.—To the first we deny the minor, namely, that the end is not a principle; for in the way in which it is something first, it has the notion of principle; but the end is first in intention, although last in execution. But Aristotle, in the said place of III Metaph., does not oppose the end to every principle, but to the principle of motion, by which he understands the efficient cause, which he distinguishes from the final.

11. To the second the minor is denied, namely, that the end does not inflow really; but to the proof the common reply is that the end inflows when it is not in reality, but only in apprehension or cognition. But a distinction is needed, both on the part of the end and on the part of the effect or action which the end causes. For, as I shall say in the following section, one end is that for the sake of which the action is made, another that to which the end is acquired; likewise one is the formal end, as the vision of God, and another the objective, as God Himself; likewise the end can cause the desire of itself, or it can also cause rest, or delight, all which we shall at once declare. The end to which, then, does not cause except when it exists; for the end to which is called the agent itself, inasmuch as it operates for itself or for its own advantage, which it cannot do unless it exists. Likewise the objective end can also be supposed existing when it causes finally, as God, for the sake of seeing whom we are moved to operate well. Again, the formal end, or the attainment of the intended end, does not cause delight or fruition of itself except when it exists, because delight is only of good possessed; but if it is of the hope of it, then hope itself has the notion of imperfect attainment. In all these, then, that argument does not proceed, because, the objective end or the end to which existing (which for the sake of clarity could be called subjective), the inquiry and causality of the end does not cease, unless the attainment of the end is also present, and, this being obtained, although the motion towards the end by way of desire ceases, yet not by way of rest and delight. Only of the formal end, then, or the attainment of the end, is it true, per se speaking, that it causes the desire of itself when it is not in reality, and of that it has rightly been answered that it suffices that it be in the apprehension and judgement of the intellect, because its motion is intentional and (so to speak) animal, through the sympathy and consonance of the powers of the soul, namely intellect and will.

12. What it is which the end causes.—The third argument demands what the end causes, and specially touches the difficulty how the form is the end of natural generation, which pertains to the difficulty about natural agents to be treated below; and therefore it is briefly said now that the end causes the desire of itself or another similar affection towards itself, and so does not cause itself immediately, but something distinct from itself. And hence too it is established, to the confirmation, that from this side it is not repugnant that the relation of cause in the end be real; for there is sufficient distinction between it and such effect; and when the end itself is not in reality distinct from its effect we shall say in sect. III.

13. But whether from another head it is repugnant that that relation be real, namely, from the fact that the end itself does not have real being while it causes, is a doubtful and controverted matter. Soncinas, V Metaph., q. 3, and Javellus, q. 6, say that that objective being which the end has in the intellect suffices for it to be really referred to the effect; but this is difficult to believe; for that objective being in the end itself posits nothing real, but only an extrinsic denomination from the act which is really in the intellect; but that act is not really referred to the effect of the final cause, because it does not concur per se to it, as I shall say below. They answer better, then, who deny that upon every real causality a real relation follows in the cause; for it is not necessary by virtue of causality, if other conditions do not concur, as is evident in the effective causality of God. Hence I add that, even if the end exists while it causes, it is not really referred to its effect, because in its mode of causing it is of a certain superior notion, because it is in no way ordered to the effect, but the effect to it. Wherefore, even if on the part of the effect a real relation is admitted here, which is probable, most of all when the effect is ordered to the end not only by extrinsic denomination but by intrinsic relation, according to what we shall declare below, nevertheless that relation is to be thought not mutual; for the effect can be referred to the end inasmuch as it depends on it; hence, just as for this dependence it is enough that the end pre-exist in the mind, so too it will suffice for a real transcendental relation, although perhaps a predicamental one is only to an actually existing end; yet, because the end causes as wholly unmoved and not ordered to its effect, therefore it is not necessary that on its part the relation be real. For just as Aristotle said that knowledge is really referred to the knowable, not conversely, so we can say of appetition and the appetible; for the reason is the same, and similarly the same of the appetible and of the end.

14. Why the motion of the end is called metaphorical.—In the fourth argument many things are touched upon pertaining to God and to natural agents; now, omitting them, we grant that causality belongs to the end as it has the notion of principle, and consequently as it has the notion of mover. But its motion is called metaphorical, not because it is not real, but because it does not take place through effective influx, nor through intentional and animal motion, and therefore nothing prevents its causality from being true and proper.

15. To the fifth, whatever be the case about natural agents, of which we answer later, the mode of operating of intellectual creatures cannot be understood without the causality of the end, because in truth they are allured and moved by the end to operate; and although they have natural propension to the objects or ends to which they are moved through proper vital acts, yet that natural propension cannot operate in its genus, that is, effectively, unless the end is sufficiently applied and concauses in its genus, and so the determination of the operation, or destination to a certain goal, which is discerned in intellectual agents, manifestly proceeds not from natural inclination alone, but from the causality of the end. To the sixth, so far as this place allows, it has been sufficiently explained what, or about what, the end causes; but the complete treatment of this matter we shall hand down below.

1. Before we proceed further to explain the other things which we proposed pertaining to the causality of the end, it is necessary to explain the various divisions, or rather significations of the name, so that it may be distinctly understood of what the disputation is.

The first division of the end into end of which and end to which

2. There is, then, a first and celebrated division of the end into the end of which (cuius) and the end to which (cui), which is taken from Aristotle, II De Anima, c. 4, where Argyropoulos translates end by which and to which; but the former words are more conformed to the Greek and declare the intention better; for the end of which is called that for the sake of attaining which a man is moved or operates, as health is in healing; the end to which is called that to which the other end is procured, as man is in the intention of health; for, although a man is healed for the sake of health, yet he seeks health itself for himself and for his own advantage.

3. But it can be asked which of these has the proper notion of end. For some attribute it only to the end to which, which Gabriel thinks, In II, dist. 1, q. 5, following Ockham, In II, q. 3, a. 1; and Henry thinks the same, Quodl. II, q. 1. And it is proved: for that is properly the end in which the intention of the agent rests; for the others seem rather to have the notion of means; but intention rests only in the end to which the others are procured; for to it all are ordered; hence, just as the means is loved only inasmuch as it is proportioned to the end, so the end of which is loved only inasmuch as it is proportioned and fitting to the end to which; therefore. And it is confirmed: for the end must be loved by the love of friendship, or at least of benevolence, because it must be loved for its own sake; but only the end to which is so loved; for the end of which is loved for another, which is called the end to which; and so the love of the end of which is of concupiscence, but that of the other is of friendship or benevolence, and therefore the end to which is loved simply, but the end of which only in a qualified sense, according to the doctrine of St. Thomas, I-II, q. 26, a. 4, saying that that is loved simply to which good is loved; but this good, which is loved for another, is loved only in a qualified sense.

4. But from elsewhere it appears that only the end of which properly has the notion of final cause; for Aristotle, wherever he defines this cause, explains its notion by this, that it is that for the sake of which something is made, as is evident in II Phys., cc. 3 and 7, and V Metaph., c. 2; and for this reason he says that the end is first in intention and last in execution, and similarly says that the form is the end of generation, not the generator itself. And it is declared by reason, because this to which the other end is acquired or sought is only the subject which is perfected or actuated by the other thing which is intended as end; as man is the subject of health or of the blessed vision, which is the end of our operations; this relation, therefore, is not properly of end, but of another notion; for no one would properly say that man is the end of the blessed vision, but rather that the vision is the end of man; for a thing is for the sake of its operation as for the sake of its end. And it is confirmed: for in the end of which is comprehended, as I shall say below, the object of the operation, as God is with respect to the blessed vision; hence man not only loves for himself the vision of God, but also God Himself, by love of concupiscence pertaining to hope, as the theologians teach; but it cannot be said that man is the end of God because he is that to which God is loved; therefore through that particle to which the proper notion of end is not explained.

5. It is dissolved.—Nevertheless it must be said that in each of these the proper notion of end can be saved, but sometimes they are so conjoined that from both there coalesces one integral end. This is consonant with Aristotle in the cited place De Anima. And it is proved by reason, for each of these ends can per se arouse the will and be loved or intended by it on account of its goodness; for so, when a man seeks health, he loves himself, to whom he wills health for his own advantage and perfection, which he desires per se on account of the supreme conjunction or rather identity which he has with himself. Similarly he loves and intends health on account of the perfection of health itself, in which there is a great difference between the means and the end of which; for the means, for example the potion, is lovable only inasmuch as it is useful for health; but health itself is loved for its own sake, because it per se perfects the man to whom it is loved. Hence it comes about that this whole, the healthy man, is the integral and adequate end of that action, in which the said two ends are included, as it were composing one integral end. So too the power is said to be for the sake of the operation as for the end for the sake of which it is made, although the operation too is truly for the sake of the power itself, namely to perfect it and constitute it in last act; so that it can deservedly be said that the integral end is the power as perfectly actuated, which others say: the power is not so much for the sake of the operation as for the sake of itself operating. And in this way it is not repugnant that two things under these diverse notions be mutually one the end of the other and conversely; for so the intellect is for the sake of the vision of God, and the vision is also for the sake of the intellect, to perfect it. Nor is this unfitting, both on account of the diverse notions, and also because the intention of the agent is borne as it were adequately to the composite of both with the mutual relation of the components between themselves, in which way matter is for the sake of form, and form too is in some way for the sake of matter; but the whole is that which is per se primo and adequately intended. Although, however, the end to which and of which can be so compared mutually, yet this is not always necessary, as I shall at once declare.

6. A little question consequent on the resolution of the preceding.—But someone will ask further, granted that each of them is properly an end, which of them is more principal. I answer that the comparison can be made either in the notion of being or in the notion of causing. In the former way it is not per se necessary that one of these ends always be the more perfect being; for sometimes the end to which is the nobler thing, as when a man operates for the sake of acquiring health for himself; but sometimes the converse happens, as when the same man operates for the sake of acquiring God for himself, who is far nobler. And the reason is that sometimes a more perfect thing or supposit intends to acquire for itself another perfection, although less, for which it is enough that such subject behaves in a more perfect way with such form than without it, although, if it is precisely compared to the same form, it is something more perfect. But sometimes some thing is perfected through conjunction with a more perfect one, as man through conjunction with God, and then a less perfect thing can very well operate for the sake of another more perfect, so as to have and possess it as it can, in which way too matter desires form, and if it could operate anything for the sake of attaining it, it would do so; under which consideration the form has the notion of end of which, and matter of end to which, which is less perfect than the form.

7. But if those two are compared in the latter way, namely in the notion of cause and of end, it seems to be the same to ask which of them is more principal as to ask which of them is more loved and more intended. And certainly the reasons made before seem to persuade that the end to which is more loved, because it is loved more by reason of itself, and the motion of the will rests more in it. Only that example seems to stand in the way about the love of concupiscence and the intention of attaining God inasmuch as He is our good. For we cannot say that by that act we love ourselves more than God; otherwise that love would be disordered; nor yet can we say that that intention rests more principally in us than in God; otherwise absolutely the ultimate end of that intention would be we and not God, and so too the intention would be disordered.

8. Wherefore a distinction or limitation is needed; for in particular goods, which are loved chiefly or even wholly for the advantage of the lover, or to perfect him, or under some other relation to him, it is true that the end to which is more principally loved and is the more principal end. And the reasons made before prove this. Which can be confirmed, for often a particular good of this kind which is the end of which supposes the absolute love of that person to whom it is loved, and the love of it is born from that love; for so a man sometimes loves himself with proper love of benevolence and from that afterwards loves health for himself. And hence too it often comes about that such particular goods are loved as means and useful for other ends fitting to the lover himself; it is a sign, therefore, that with respect to these ends the end to which itself is more principal and more loved. But when the end for the sake of which is the highest good and the ultimate end, if it is loved and intended in an orderly way, it must always retain the more principal notion of end and draw the intention of the operator more to itself. Because, since it is simply the ultimate end, it cannot be so referred to another under some notion of end that it rests principally in the other. And so, when a man intends to attain God, although he himself is in some way the end to which that good is sought, yet absolutely the man rather orders himself to that end, for he wills to be conjoined to the good as to his ultimate end. Whence it comes about that, although in that motion and tendency with respect to the means and the operation the man is properly called the end to which, yet with respect to God Himself, who is principally sought, he is not so much to be called end as the subject which is ordered to attaining that end. Although I do not deny that he can also be called the end to which; for in truth he has that notion, yet so that he is understood rather to be ordered to the other, objective and ultimate end, than to order it to himself.

The second division of the end into operation and thing made

9. Secondly the end is commonly divided into that which is only operation and that which results from the operation or to which the action tends as to a thing made. Which division Aristotle touched upon, I Ethic., and bk. I Magn. Moral., c. 3. And as regards the formal notion of end, the division seems material, taken from the things which exercise this causality rather than from the variation of causing. Nevertheless for understanding the authors, especially various places of Aristotle, and for explaining other divisions, and especially for declaring the ends of diverse things and most of all of man, it is necessary. The examples of each member, then, are easy, both in works of art and of nature. For the end of healing is health, of building a house, of generation the thing generated, and so of others; but of playing the cithara there is no other end than the citharizing itself, and of contemplation nothing but contemplation itself. Although in the second member it must be noted that in those actions too the terminus can philosophically be distinguished from the action; for the terminus is always some quality; but the action is the way or tendency of that quality; yet, because the terminus of this action is such that it does not last except as long as it is being made, because in becoming and being conserved it depends on the actual motion or influx of the power, therefore, as regards the notion of end, there is no distinction between the action as action and as terminus; but in actions of the former genus the intended end is the thing made, which remains when the action ceases. From which it is also understood that this division is given only of the end of which; for the end to which is neither action, nor is made through action, but is rather supposed to the action, since it is the agent itself.

The third division of the end, namely, of the action or of the thing made

10. And hence arose the third division of the end, into the end of the action and the end of the thing made or generated. Which is taken from Aristotle, partly II Phys., c. 7, partly II De Caelo, c. 3. For in the former place he says that the form is the end of generation; but in the latter he says that each thing, and therefore the form itself or the thing generated, is for the sake of its operation. And so it comes about (as is also taken from Averroes, IV De Caelo, text 22) that the thing generated is the end of the generation, and the operation too for the sake of which the thing is generated is also the end, proximately indeed and immediately of the thing generated itself, but remotely and mediately of the generation. In which division only two things occur to be noted: one is that, when Aristotle says the form is the end of generation, under form he comprehends the whole composite or the thing itself generated; for generation is most of all for its sake; yet, because the thing generated is not made except by inducing the form into matter, therefore he explained the end of generation through the form. And what Aristotle said of generation is to be understood of every action, both natural and artificial, through which some thing is made so as to remain, and it can be extended also to creation; for the thing which is created too is the proximate end of that action.

11. The other thing to be observed is that the end of the thing generated is commonly thought to be some operation for the sake of which the thing is made, as the vision of God is with respect to man, or illumination with respect to the sun; yet, in order that we may comprehend every end of the thing generated, by operation it is necessary to understand every use to which the thing generated is ordered; for the end of matter, which is a certain thing generated or created, is not some proper operation, but is its causality, namely the sustaining of the form, or such composition of substance; similarly the end of a house is habitation, which is not an operation, but a certain protection and as it were extrinsic information of the inhabitants, and so of others. And according to this mode it happens that not only with respect to the thing generated is there given an end which is an operation, for the sake of which the thing generated itself is, but also with respect to one operation there is given another which is its end; for so citharizing is for the sake of delight and speech for the sake of intellection. For one operation can concur to another, either objectively, or effectively, or at least as a necessary or useful condition to another operation, and therefore it can be ordered to it as to an end.

The fourth division into objective and formal end

12. Fourthly, from these divisions, especially from the second, there arises another, by which the end is divided into objective and formal. For, as we said, sometimes the end is operation; but this operation, especially if it is immanent, requires besides the act itself an object about which it is concerned, as contemplation, which is the end of man, is concerned about some thing or truth worthy of contemplation, for the sake of which contemplation itself in some way is, because through it it is as it were procured and possessed according to the mode proportioned to it. And in this sense the theologians distinguish, in the end of man, the vision and God seen, and they say the vision is the formal end, which they also call the end by which, and the attainment of the end; but God they call the objective end, or the end which, because He is procured through the formal end. So it is taken from St. Thomas, I-II, q. 1, a. 8, and q. 3, a. 7, and q. 11, a. 3, ad 3, where he notes that these are not so much two ends as one, because neither can the object be attained except through the act, nor the act be made except about the object, and therefore the motion and intention of the agent is to both by way of one, and so they complete one final cause. Although, in the way in which they are diverse things, they can be compared among themselves and one ordered to the other. And in this way almost the whole doctrine which was handed down about the first can be applied to this division.

The fifth division of the end into that which is made and that which is obtained

13. And hence further it comes about (which can be a fifth division) that the end of which is sometimes supposed to the operation of the agent and intended not as to be effected but as to be obtained, which holds true of the objective end, and in this way God is the end of our actions, and this is extended to all things which are supposed as objects or matter about which, as riches are the end of the avaricious man, not to be produced but to be acquired, even if they already exist. But sometimes the end is not supposed, but is made through the action of the agent, whether to be made is said properly of a thing made, or broadly, as can also be said of action. And in this way the vision of God is the end of man, and universally every operation, or terminus made through it, is an end not pre-existing, but subsequent to the intention of the agent. And St. Thomas taught this division in terms, III Cont. Gent., c. 18, and it is taken from the doctrine of Aristotle, partly II Phys. and V Metaph., where he chiefly makes mention of that end which is made through the action of the agent; partly II De Caelo, text 64, and XII Metaph., text 36, where he says that God is the end for the sake of which the others act; but it is established that God is not an end which is made through the action of the agent, but which is supposed to the actions of all agents.

The sixth division into ultimate and not ultimate end

14. Sixthly, the end is divided into proximate and remote and ultimate. This division is frequent among authors, and has foundation in Aristotle, in the places cited, and in II Metaph., c. 2, where he shows that there is no process to infinity in ends. It can seem to someone, however, that the division involves repugnance with the thing divided; for it is of the notion of end that it be ultimate, as the very name displays. And because it is of the notion of end that it be loved for its own sake and other things for its sake, and consequently that it itself be not loved for the sake of others; for then it would no longer be end, but means; the end, therefore, is not rightly divided into proximate and remote or ultimate. In order, then, that the division be understood, two notions can be distinguished in the final cause: the prior is that by which the end is said to be loved for its own sake; the posterior, inasmuch as other things are loved for its sake and it is the reason of loving them. Under the prior notion, then, every end, if it is considered precisely inasmuch as it is end, has the notion of ultimate, as the reason made shows; for in that which is said to be loved for its own sake is included the negation of love for the sake of another; in which negation the notion of ultimate is consummated. It happens, however, that, although some object is loved for its own sake and for its own goodness, nevertheless either by its nature or from the intention of the operator it is referred and tends to a further end, as when someone gives alms, both because it is an honest action in the notion of mercy, and because it is accommodated to satisfying God for sins. Then, therefore, one end is ordered to another, although under that notion under which it is ordered it does not have the notion of end, but of means. That end, then, which is immediately loved for its own sake, is called the proximate end; but the other end to which the other is ordered is called remote; but if the intention of the operator rests in it, it will also be ultimate; but if it is ordered to a further end, it will be only remote, not however ultimate; but because one cannot proceed to infinity, one will have to stop at some one which is ultimate.

15. And so the necessity of the aforesaid division is easily established; for, because the intention of the agent must necessarily be immediately concerned with some end, because otherwise it would never be begun, therefore it is necessary that there be some proximate end; for it is that which the agent proximately and immediately intends by such act or intention. But it is not simply necessary that besides the proximate end there be a remote one, because the intention of the agent can rest in one end; yet, because it can also tend to a further end, therefore besides the proximate a remote end can be given. And similarly, although some ultimate end is always necessary, because one does not proceed to infinity, yet it is not necessary that the ultimate end always be distinct from the proximate; for if the will rests in one end only, which it can do, that will be at once proximate and ultimate, at least negatively, that is, after which there is no other; but when there are several subordinated ends, then it is necessary that these ends be distinct. And hence it comes about that, although it happens that several means are subordinated among themselves, so that the first is for the sake of the second and the second for the sake of the third, and so up to the end which is loved for its own sake, yet, if none of those means is loved for its own sake, but purely as means for the sake of another, none of them has the notion of proximate or remote end under the aforesaid notion; but that end to which the whole series of means is ordered, although it seems remote in the notion of object willed and material, yet in the notion of end is proximate or first, to which as to an end the will tends, and will also be ultimate, if it is not ordered to another end.

16. But if we consider the end under the other relation, namely inasmuch as something is chosen or made for its sake, so it is easier to distinguish those three notions of ends, not only in things which are desired for their own sake, but also in things which are pure means chosen for the sake of another. For when for one end several means subordinated among themselves are chosen, it is necessary that there be a first and a last means, both in the order of intention and in the order of execution; for in neither order can one proceed to infinity; otherwise either election or execution would never be begun. But that is called the first means in the order of intention which is immediate to the end and which is first chosen after the intention of the end, and that itself is last in execution. But conversely that means which is last in the order of choosing is first in execution; for where election is finished, there execution begins, so that gradually through the means one comes up to the attainment of the end. This means, then, which is first in execution and last in election has no notion of end, because neither is it loved for its own sake, since it is only means, nor yet is anything else loved for its sake, since in it election is finished; yet the second means has now the notion of proximate end with respect to the prior means, which was chosen for its sake. But the third means has the notion of remote end with respect to the first means, and so one can proceed through several ends more or less remote until one stops at the ultimate, which is always necessary, since one cannot proceed to infinity. And so that division is sufficiently established as regards the exposition of the terms; but some questions which arise from it will be treated more conveniently in the course of the disputation, especially two, namely, whether means participate in some way the causality of the end, and whether it is necessary to constitute some ultimate end, where also we shall declare various acceptations of ultimate end, and whether it has proper and per se causality inasmuch as it is ultimate or remote end.

1. Before we speak of the end's notion of causing, it seems we should treat of its effects, so that we may proceed from those things which are better known to us. And since, as I said above, we are now considering the final cause with respect to the created will, through which intellectual agents operate for the sake of an end, we can consider a twofold set of effects of this cause: some are within the will itself, and are the acts or affections elicited by it; others are outside the will, and are effects which go forth outside it from the efficacy or command or motion of the will through its proper acts.

2. It is, then, first of all certain that the final cause, as we are now considering it, per se primo and most of all causes some act or affection in the will itself. This is received by the consent of all, and can be sufficiently shown by the reasons by which in sect. 1 we showed that there is a final cause; for we arrive at the knowledge of causes through effects; but through no effects do we so know the causality of the end as through those which it has about the human will, which by its metaphorical motion it allures both to love it and to seek it through fitting means, until it attains it and rests in it.

The first difficulty, about the causality of the end regarding the internal acts of the will

3. But the difficulty is whether all the acts which intervene in this progress are from the end as from their proper cause in its genus, or not all, but some of them, and which. In order that the reason of the difficulty be perceived, it is necessary to distinguish several acts which intervene in this business. Some tend directly to the end, either according to itself absolutely, as simple willing of it or love, or as to be attained through means, as intention; and these acts precede not only the attainment of the end but also the election of means. Others are acts which are proximately concerned with means, although by reason of the end, and of this kind properly is election, which consultation and inquiry about means precede, which, inasmuch as it is necessary or useful for seeking the end, is reduced to the means, and inasmuch as it is voluntary, falls in some way under election or is brought back to it. And these two genera of acts are said to pertain to the order of intention, because they precede not only the attainment of the end but also the execution of the means. But after the order of intention follows the order of execution, in which similarly two other genera of acts can be distinguished: for some are concerned with the execution of means, through their use, which they call active; others are concerned with the end as already attained and possessed, namely fruition or joy, which is also called rest of the mind, and in that state love too can last.

4. There is, then, about these acts a first general difficulty, because the end is only the cause of means; but none of these acts is truly and properly a means for obtaining the end; therefore none of them is caused by the end. The major is established from the definition of the end; for it is that for the sake of which something is made, which properly belongs to means alone. Next there is a special and greater difficulty about the acts which are concerned with the end; for they are in no way for the sake of the end; therefore they are not effects of the end. The antecedent is evident, because that is for the sake of the end which proceeds from the love or intention of the end; for that to be for the sake of says an ordination to the end arising from some prior act; but the intention of the end does not arise from another intention, nor love from love, otherwise there would be a process to infinity; therefore. Hence, just as the assent to the conclusion is from the principles, but the assent to the principle is not from a principle, so the willing of the means can be from the end and for the sake of the end; but the willing of the end not so. Thirdly, the difficulty is increased in those acts which are concerned with the end already attained; for the end does not cause after it has been obtained; for its causality consists in motion; but, the end being attained, the mind now rests; all motion ceases, therefore; and therefore the causality of the end too. Hence Aristotle, I De Generat., text 55, says that, the end being attained, action ceases; but, action ceasing, the causality of the end too ceases, because where there is no efficient cause, neither can there be a final one, as we shall teach below.

Resolution of the first difficulty

5. In order that we may begin from clearer things, it must be said, first, that the use or execution of means is per se and properly an effect of the final cause. About this conclusion there is no controversy nor reason for doubting, because this act not only proceeds from the affection and intention of the end, but can also truly and properly be called a means to the end. For, although by the name of use and execution of the end we here understand not only the external use or execution, but also the internal act by which the will applies the members or instruments to executing the means, yet that whole action, as it includes both the commanding and the commanded act, is truly and properly called a means to the end; therefore it is also most properly an effect of the end. And it is confirmed, for election is of means; but when the means are such that they must be exercised through the active use of the will, the active use itself also falls under election; for that whole human action which coalesces from the internal and external act is chosen as a means; therefore the internal act of the will too, by which the execution of the external means proximately takes place, has the notion of means to the end; therefore it is also an effect of the end itself.

6. I say secondly: the election of means is truly and properly an effect of the final cause. It is proved, first, because that act is most properly for the sake of the end; but by these words the causality of the end is most declared; therefore that act is from the causality of the end. Secondly, that act proceeds from the intention of the end and from reason ordering the means to the end; but in these the causality of the end seems chiefly to consist; therefore. Thirdly, such act depends essentially on the end, because it would not be concerned with means except by reason of the end; indeed rather the chosen means themselves are not effects of the end except by means of election; therefore it is much more necessary that election itself be an effect of the end. And these reasons confirm almost equally the preceding assertion.

7. Nor does the first reason for doubting posited at the beginning stand against these assertions. First, because not only means are for the sake of the end, but whatever depends essentially on the end and proceeds from its love. Next, because election itself can not unfittingly be called a means to the end. Which can be explained from what we said above in treating of the formally free power, namely, that the act elicited by it is intrinsically voluntary or willed by way of act; election itself, therefore, since it is an act elicited by the will, is also intrinsically willed; but it is not willed except for the sake of attaining the end, because, just as the thing which is chosen is chosen for the sake of the end, so election itself is exercised for the sake of the end. As he who chooses almsgiving to satisfy for sins refers to that end not only the almsgiving itself which he chooses, but also the very volition by which he chooses it; for for that end that election is necessary, and in it is found that goodness and utility which is found in the means compared to the intended end. And it is confirmed, first, for consultation is of means to the end, and if it happens that the will by a direct and formal act wills to consult, which often happens, that volition is in truth of the same means to the end, because no one wills to consult for any other reason than to prepare for himself the way to obtaining the end; therefore similarly, if by a proper and reflex will he wills here and now to choose, as he also can, by that act he wills election as a certain means, because he also wills it for the sake of the end, as consultation; therefore also when he does not do this by a distinct and reflex act, election itself, in the way in which it is intrinsically willed, is intrinsically a certain means to the end, by reason of which it is willed; it is, therefore, truly and properly an effect of the end.

8. I say thirdly: the acts which are concerned with the end itself, and precede or can precede in the order of intention its attainment, are truly and properly effects of the end. About this conclusion I find some diversity among authors; for some admit it of the act of intention or desire, but not of the first act of love or simple willing. And the reason can be that desire or intention suppose love of the end and proceed from it, and therefore can be caused by the end by means of the love of itself, and will most properly be said to be for the sake of the end or for the end's sake, and therefore can be effects of the end. But love does not suppose another act or love of the end from which it proceeds, and therefore is not from the love of the end; nor yet is it formally for the sake of the end, so far as concerns the direction of the will itself; it is not, therefore, an effect of the end in the genus of final cause, but only in the genus of object, efficient or specifying, according to various opinions. And Ferrariensis seems to hold this opinion, I Cont. Gent., c. 75; for he says that, although the thing which is the end can be loved by ordering nothing to it, yet it does not exercise the causality of the end until something is loved for its sake, and he relies on the words of St. Thomas there, saying that the causality of the end consists in this, that other things are desired for its sake. Yet St. Thomas there does not say that this is the adequate causality of the end, but that this pertains to the causality of the end. Others, however, admit the conclusion of all these acts, with a certain moderation, namely, that these acts are in truth effects of the end, yet not so properly or not so perfectly as the former, which can be taken from Gabriel, In II, dist. 38, note 2; and Gregory, whom he cites there, a. 1.

9. Others nevertheless simply affirm that the end is properly the final cause of these acts, as Henry, II p. of the Summa, a. 46, q. 6. And in this sense the assertion is posited, which I take from St. Thomas, I-II, q. 1, a. 1, where he says simply that all human acts are for the sake of the end and consequently are effects of the end; for these two are convertible, as to be from the agent and to be the effect of the agent, comprehending the action itself under effect. But these acts of which we are now treating are truly human acts; for they proceed from man as he is rational; indeed they are also free, at least for the state of this life, as was proved above, disp. XVIII, sect. 3; therefore.

10. And hence the first reason can be constructed; for man, inasmuch as he exercises these actions, even the first love of the end, operates for the sake of the end, and does not operate as moved by another to the end, but as proximately and immediately moved by the end itself, according to its proper and formal notion; therefore these acts are for the sake of the end, as caused by the proper motion of the end as end; therefore they are effects of the end as causing finally. The consequences are evident, because the causality of the end is most proper through the said motion. The major is also evident, because that action does not take place rashly and by chance, but tends by design to a definite goal; but hence we gather that some action is for the sake of the end. The minor too is sufficiently clear, because in each of those acts man operates allured and attracted by the known end, not in any way whatever, but inasmuch as it is a certain good lovable for its own sake, which is a certain proper relation and formal notion of the end, and by virtue of this cognition man so operates in that action that he directs and moves himself to such end and to its formal goodness. And this reason is taken from St. Thomas, in the said a. 1, where he proves that a human act is for the sake of the end in no other way than because it is from the object of the will under the notion of end, that is, as it exercises the proper causality of the end; and III Cont. Gent., c. 2, reason 5, he says thus: Of agents through intellect there is no doubt that they act for the sake of an end, for they act preconceiving through the intellect that which they attain through the action, and from such preconception they act. And these words can also be applied to the simple love of the end itself.

11. Secondly this is declared more fully in love itself; for it can be considered in two ways: first, as it directly tends to the object; secondly, as by virtual reflection it falls upon itself, in that way, namely, in which I said above that acts of this kind are intrinsically voluntary. In the former consideration it is caused by the goodness of the object, as known and moving the appetite to love such thing for the sake of its goodness, and so it is truly caused by the object as by the end, not indeed as by an end extrinsic to the thing willed, but as by the proper and intrinsic end of the very act of love, which tends to it. And for the same reason such act is said truly and properly to be for the sake of the end, not as for the sake of an extrinsic reason of willing, but because it is for the sake of its intrinsic goodness, and from its proper motion. In which (whatever others say) the reason is the same of love and of intention; for intention too is not for the sake of an end which is an extrinsic reason of willing, but because it tends to the end for its own sake and for its intrinsic goodness; but that difference, that intention supposes a prior act of love, matters nothing to the present matter, as we shall at once declare. Finally, from the common mode of speaking it is established that we are truly and properly said to love the end for its own sake, or for its goodness, for so we love God; but this particle for the sake of, attributed with propriety to the end, declares its causality; therefore these expressions are true on account of the causality of the end about such act. Hence for this reason too, when we love God above all things, we are said to love Him as the ultimate end, because in truth He exercises about our love the proper causality of the ultimate end, and such act does not tend to another end, nor is it aroused except by the supreme goodness of such end proposed to the will.

12. In the latter consideration too, including virtual reflection, it is most openly established that such act is for the sake of the end, because, although it can be loved for its honesty (which is not outside the notion of causing finally), yet in truth it is loved for the sake of the object to which it directly tends as for the sake of the end, in almost the same way as we said above of election. Although in election a certain notion of means to the end appears more than in love, because love is not so ordered to attaining the end as election. In which there also seems to be some difference between desire or intention and love of the end; for desire, since from its notion it supposes the lack of the attained end, is in some way a means to attaining it, indeed is as it were a certain beginning of the search for it, which is true by the same or greater reason of intention; but love from its notion does not suppose the lack of attainment of the end, and from this side can participate the notion of means less. But this difference in no way prevents love itself from being truly caused by the end, because, as I said above, this causality is not limited to means alone, but extends to every act which is truly for the sake of the end and from its proper motion. Especially since love too, when it precedes the attainment of the end, inasmuch as it arouses and moves to seek it, can be called a most useful means for attaining it. I add finally that love from its notion, abstracting from this or that state of the lover, tends to the end so as to unite and conjoin the lover; hence, inasmuch as love itself is virtually or formally loved, it is loved for the sake of this end; therefore it is loved for the sake of the end which it has for object; therefore it is caused by the same end.

13. Which can be excellently confirmed from the doctrine of St. Thomas, In IV, dist. 49, q. 1, a. 1, quaestiunc. 2, where he says that, since the object of the will is the end, this very thing which is to will, and any other act of the will, is nothing else than for something to be ordered to the end, and therefore necessarily supposes some objective end to which it is ordered. It can also be added from Capreolus, In I, dist. 1, q. 1, ad 1 against the third conclusion, that this love, because it precedes the attainment of the end, is ordered as to an end to the attainment and fruition of the thing loved itself, and in this way too can be an effect of the final cause. And in the course of that article and of the solutions of the arguments he says and heaps up many things from the doctrine of St. Thomas which can contribute to confirming this opinion. Finally this love too can be ordered to the lover himself as to the end to which, inasmuch as it perfects him and unites him in some way to his objective end; therefore from this head too it can be an effect of the final cause.

14. I say fourthly: the acts of the will which are concerned with the end already attained can and must also be numbered among the effects of the final cause. It is proved, for these acts can only be either love or joy, about which it is controverted whether they are distinct acts as they are concerned with the end already obtained, which Capreolus treats at length, in the cited place; now let us speak of them as distinct, whether they differ in reality or in reason. The act of love, then, as such, is of the same notion about the end which is loved for its own sake, whether that end is already possessed or not; therefore, if love according to itself, or that which precedes the attainment of the end, is an effect of the final cause, that love too which remains when the end is already attained is an effect of the same end. The consequence is evident, because in the same way love in each state is caused by the known object alluring the will to love it for its own sake and for its goodness. And so St. Thomas, I-II, q. 23, a. 4, and q. 26, a. 2, attributes in the same way to the causality of the end or of the good object its love in each state, indeed also delight, as I shall at once say. Hence too all the reasons by which we proved that the first willing or love towards the end is an effect of the final cause prove the same of the last love, especially since it is probable that it is always the same and can persevere.

15. About joy, however, inasmuch as it is something distinct from love, there seems to be some reason for doubting, both because it is as it were a certain passion necessarily consequent upon the possession of the loved end, and also because it is as it were the last rest of the mind to which the other things are ordered, even love itself, but it itself is not ordered to another, and so does not seem to have an end by which it could be caused. But nevertheless the assertion posited is proved also of this act; for in truth joy is not a mere passion, but is a vital act elicited by the will itself and caused in its genus by the object per se good, and proposed by reason, and inviting the will to rest in it and in its possession and to rejoice on account of its goodness; but this causality of the object is none other than final, as regards this mode of motion, whatever be the case as to whether from elsewhere effective causality too intervenes between those acts, which matters nothing to the present question. And it is confirmed, first, for delight itself is by the nature of the thing ordered as to an end to the very action upon which it follows, as a certain perfection and beauty of it, and to contribute to its constancy and facility; therefore delight too which follows from the attained end is ordered to the very attainment of the end, as to the end which in its way it perfects and strengthens; therefore, if delight is intellectual and follows from that end perfectly known and proposed to the will, it will be caused by it in the genus of end. Hence, although delight is said to be something last in the way of generation, yet in the order of ends according to itself it is not simply last, although sometimes it can be taken by the appetent as the ultimate end of which. And then too delight itself is ordered to him who takes the delight as to the end to which, and from this side can be an effect of the final cause.

16. Nor do the reasons made before press against this and the preceding conclusion. For to the first it has already been answered that not only means are effects of the final cause, but every act which contributes to the end or is ordered to it, either as means, or as perfection of its possession; and finally whatever is from the proper motion of the end preconceived and proposed according to its proper notion of good lovable for its own sake. To the second, we deny that these acts are not for the sake of the end, for in truth we love God for His own sake, and we delight in God for His own sake. Nor for this is it necessary that the act, because it is caused by the end or said to be for the sake of the end, be caused from a prior love of the end, but it is enough that it be caused by the goodness of the end itself alluring the will. Although delight, inasmuch as it is an act distinct from love, is in truth caused by love; for someone delights in the possessed end because he loves it; but that causality, inasmuch as it is between acts, pertains more to a certain mode of efficiency or natural resultance than to the final causality which we are now seeking. This, then, is to be considered more from the relation of the act to the object or end and from the peculiar mode in which an intellectual thing is moved by the end to acts of this kind. To the third it is answered that, although delight is called rest, yet it is not in a dead mode (so to speak), as is natural rest, which consists in the sole lack of motion, but it is a vital rest, which is not without internal action; yet, because that is not for obtaining and seeking the end, but for enjoying the end already possessed, therefore it is called rest of the mind. Inasmuch, then, as it is a proper act and true action, it can be an effect of the end. But what Aristotle says, that, the end being attained, motion or action ceases, is to be understood of the motion by which one tends to the attainment of the end, not of the internal action by which one rests in the end. Indeed St. Thomas adds, In IV, dist. 48, q. 2, a. 2, to the first reason in the opposite, that motion then ceases when the end is had, when such motion does not accompany the end itself or its attainment; as the heaven attains its end by means of its motion, yet does not cease, because for that end that motion is necessary; so, then, the internal action of love or delight does not cease when the end is attained, because it accompanies such end and is necessary for its perfection, and therefore with respect to such action the causality of the end does not cease.

17. But here a theological difficulty arose, especially from the last conclusion, for hence it follows that the beatific love and fruition itself are truly and properly caused by God seen, or by His vision, in the genus of final cause, and consequently that those acts are truly and properly for the sake of the end, which seems unfitting, since the acts are simply necessary. But because the matter is theological, I answer briefly by granting that those acts are from the causality of the end; for all the reasons made above prove this equally. Nor does it stand in the way that they are necessary; rather in the foregoing I said that the necessity of that love comes from God clearly seen as ultimate end, whose supreme goodness is so powerful in causing even in that genus as wholly to subject the will to itself. Finally, that necessity does not come from imperfection or from an irrational mode of operating, but rather from the supreme perfection both of the ultimate end itself and of the mode of applying it through rational or most perfect intellectual cognition to moving the will, and therefore nothing prevents that motion of the will, however necessary, from being from the proper causality of the end. But whether this suffices for that necessary love to be called a human act or not is treated by the theologians, and pertains more to moral philosophy than to metaphysics.

On the external effects of the final cause

18. We have spoken so far of the effects which the final cause has within the will itself of the cause acting from purpose; now it remains to speak of the effects which go forth outwardly from such cause, that is, outside the human will itself, so that under these effects are comprehended both the acts of all the other faculties of man himself, namely, intellect, senses, etc., and also external effects, if there are any, which result through these actions. In which matter two things are certain and beyond controversy. One is that all the natural actions which man exercises without the command or motion of the will are not effects of the final cause in that special mode in which we now speak; of this kind are all the actions of the vegetative soul, inasmuch as they are merely natural, and the acts of the senses or also of the intellect, inasmuch as they sometimes precede the motion of the will. And the reason is that the causality of the end, inasmuch as it is properly concerned with agents from purpose, which move themselves to the end, is first per se about the will, and supposes the sufficient application of such cause through the intellect; but in these actions which do not proceed from the motion of the will, man is not so moved by the end, but acts after the manner of other natural agents; therefore. Hence such mode of acting per se does not require proper and rational cognition of the end itself. Indeed even in the intellect itself the cognition or apprehension of the end itself, if it is natural and in no way from the will, does not proceed from the cognition of the end, but is the very cognition of the end, and therefore does not proceed from the causality of the end as such, as it is proper to agents from purpose. Which I therefore always add, because in these natural acts man operates for the sake of the end as other natural agents do, of which we shall afterwards see what it is in them to operate for the sake of the end, and what causality of the end can be in them. And in this assertion so expounded no difficulty remains.

19. Secondly, it is certain that all the actions, and their effects, which proceed from the command and motion of the created will operating for the sake of an end are effects of the final cause. It is proved, first, from the mode of speaking and thinking of all, for when a man walks for the sake of attaining health, such walking is thought to be an effect of the health preconceived and intended, and therefore is said to be most properly for the sake of the end, not from the direction of some extrinsic agent, but of the operator himself, who for this reason is called an agent from purpose; and the same holds of all similar cases. And when through these actions some permanent terminus is made in having been made, that too is thought to be an effect of the preconceived end, either in becoming while it is actually being made, or in having been made when afterwards it remains; in which way Aristotle said that instruments are for the sake of the end, and similarly a house and other artificial things are effects of some preconceived end. But the reason is that the end moves to all these actions; therefore all are its effects. Likewise such actions, as they are made by man, depend essentially on the end as causing, because they cannot otherwise be made by man; therefore they are effects of the end. Likewise those actions are means by which the intended end is procured; but the end causes not only intention or election, but also the execution of means; indeed in this its causality seems most to shine forth.

20. You will say: sometimes an action commanded by the will is not a means, but the intended end itself, according to a certain division given above, that the end is sometimes a thing done, sometimes the action itself, as citharizing or contemplation; therefore then at least the action will not be for the sake of the end, even if it proceeds from the will; therefore it will not be caused by the end. It is answered, as we already noted above, that there is no action which, if it is taken properly as it is action, does not have some intrinsic terminus for the sake of which it is made, as citharizing itself, inasmuch as it is a certain motion, effects a certain proportioned sound, which is a certain quality artfully composed, and in this way every action is in some way a means to its terminus, and for that reason can be caused by it as by the end. But if we speak of the terminus itself, or it is comprehended under the action by way of one, then it is not properly a means, supposing that it is the ultimate end in its series; yet nevertheless, although it is the end of which, it can have an end to which; for citharizing as it is made by man is for the sake of the operator himself; or if such act is a formal end, it can be for the sake of an objective one, as contemplation is for the sake of truth itself. And so always every action which is commanded by the will is an effect of some preconceived end.

21. About this latter assertion, however, two things occur to be briefly explained. The first was touched upon above, sect. 1, because from what has been said it follows that the same thing is the cause of itself, which seems absurd. And the sequel is evident, first, because the operation commanded by the will is often a true final cause, which, apprehended, moves to its own execution, and not only to desire or intention; therefore the execution of that operation is an effect of the same operation apprehended by way of end; but that execution is not other than the operation itself; therefore. Next, because the attainment of the end (whether it consists in operation, or in the sole inherence of some form, or in another similar relation) is the last effect of the final cause, as the end of healing is health, not in any way, but as inhering in me and affecting me, and this is the last thing which is caused by virtue of that intention, and the same holds proportionally in the rest. But the first end which moves and causes up to this effect is the attainment of the end itself as apprehended; it causes, therefore, itself.

22. It is answered, first, that there is no drawback in granting this whole, because in the final cause there does not intervene that repugnance which is in the efficient cause, so that it cannot be the cause of itself, because it does not require real pre-existence in order to cause, but intentional suffices, by means of apprehension; since, therefore, the end causes before it has existence in act, it is no wonder that it can concur in its genus to its own existence. And so we grant that the same thing according to diverse conditions of existing can cause itself, for, existing intentionally, it causes itself to be really. Nor is this diverse from what is said by the common axiom, that which is first in intention is last in execution; or what Aristotle too said, that form and end coincide in the same in number, although form and efficient can coincide only in the same in species. For the form, or its formal effect, is the effect of the agent, and as such is also the effect of the end which aroused the agent to operate, and which is not other than the form itself. Next we add that there is no attainment of the end which is not in some way for the sake of the end, either objective, if it has one, or at least for the sake of the end to which, which is always supposed to final causality, and as such is not its effect; and in this way the effect of the end, even the last, is always in some way distinguished from the adequate final cause. Finally, the attainment of the end, either ultimate simply or in some series, does not cause itself immediately, but proximately causes in the intellectual agent, of which we are now speaking, the affection and intention and other acts by means of which its causality reaches up to that action by which the end itself is procured and in which it consists, and so always something distinct from it concurs to causality of this kind.

23. But then the other proposed difficulty occurs to be explained, namely, what kind this causality of the end is about the external actions or things flowing from the motion of the will. For in these there is a special reason for doubting, for the internal acts elicited by the will have a real and intrinsic relation to the end itself as to their proper object, either formal and material together, as in intention and the other acts which are proximately concerned with the end itself, or formal only, as in the election of means; and therefore it is rightly understood that the end itself per se and proximately arouses and moves to such acts, and conversely that such acts per se and intrinsically depend on the causality of such end. But acts only commanded by the will (and much more their effects) are in no way proximately aroused by the end itself, nor do they themselves say intrinsic relation to the end, but only by extrinsic denomination are they said to be ordered to the end by means of the interior acts, as exterior walking is merely extrinsically ordered to health. From which it seems to follow, first, that the end is not per se but per accidens the cause of effects of this kind, in the way in which one applying or arousing the efficient cause is said to be the cause of the effect caused by it, or in the way in which the grandfather is the cause of the grandson because he begot his father; for so the end is the cause of the external action only because it begot the internal. Next, it seems to follow that by virtue of this causality of the end nothing real is posited in actions and external effects of this kind, per se speaking, but only extrinsic denomination, which is not enough for real causality. The sequel is evident, because the exterior act has from this only that it be ordered by means of the interior to such end, which is only an extrinsic denomination in the exterior, a sign of which is that, if it happened that that exterior action were made either for the sake of another end, or by chance and without any end, it would not be changed or diminished in itself and in its entity, nor would the physical action by which it is made be other; therefore it is a sign that it is not caused per se by that end, but only remotely and per accidens. For in efficient causes, although it happens that the same effect which is made by one cause can be caused by another, yet, if it is a per se cause, it is necessary that at least the action be diverse, as was handed down in the foregoing; hence, if from the change of the cause neither the effect nor the action is changed, it is a sign that such cause neither per se nor immediately inflows into such effect; the same, therefore, due proportion being kept, will hold in the present case.

24. This difficulty requires that we explain what the causality of the final cause is, or what it posits in its effects, which we shall perform in the following section, and at its end we shall satisfy the difficulty.

1. We are not now inquiring into the notion of causing in first act, so to speak, or that which in the final cause is the proximate notion by which it is able so to cause, for of this we shall speak in the following section; but we are inquiring into the causation itself in second act, namely what it is, and where or in what subject or effect it is; for this, although in the other causes it is difficult to explain, in this one is in truth most difficult, because it does not appear what thing or what real mode this causality can be; but if it is none of these, neither will it be able to be real causality.

The first opinion is weighed

2. Some, then, easily extricate themselves from this difficulty, saying that this causality is nothing else than that the action or effect is made for the sake of the end, or on the end's account. For Aristotle did not explain this causality of the end otherwise than by saying that it is that for the sake of which something is made. Hence Cajetan, II-II, q. 17, a. 5, excellently teaches that, just as in the agent there is the notion of acting which is in it, and the effect, and the causality, which is as it were a middle between the notion of acting and the effect, so in the end there are those three: the notion of finalizing, finalization, and the effect. But he says that finalization is something unnamed, and is signified only by these words, to be that for the sake of which, or to be made for the sake of another, and that this causality cannot be explained further, nor can it be understood what else it is, nor yet where it is. For if it is said to be in the will, against this is, first, that this cannot be saved in the will of God, nor in natural agents, which also operate for the sake of an end. And next it must be inquired in our will what it is, for either it is something antecedent to the act elicited by the will itself, and this not, according to the true and sound doctrine, because in the will nothing is received before the act elicited by it, as was sufficiently proved above in treating of the concurrence of the first cause. I omit supernatural habits, which are sometimes infused before every act, because they hold the place of the power, or complete it, and so do not come into the present consideration. Likewise, because if anything were received in the will, it would have to have some efficient principle outside it, which is none besides the final cause itself; but this as such is not active, otherwise the causalities would be confused. Besides which the end would have efficiency without real being. And therefore Aristotle deservedly said, I De Gener., text 55: The cause for the sake of which the others are made is not active, and health itself is not active except by transference. Nor yet can it be said that that principle is the intellect or its act, because it is improbable that the intellect by itself alone can impress something on the will, and next it cannot be explained what that is. And moreover this is little consonant with the freedom of the will. Or else that which is said to be the causality of the end in the will is the very act of the will, and this not, because this is the effect; but causation must be in some way distinct from the effect. Add moreover that in commanded acts it will not be possible to explain what this causality is, because in acts of this kind the end itself inflows nothing immediately; and much less will it be possible to explain it in the effects of God and of natural agents.

3. This opinion has great difficulty in this, that it does not declare the matter, for by those words, that for the sake of which, there is declared not so much the causality of the end as a certain denomination resulting in the end itself from the fact that something else is ordered to it; which denomination cannot be causality, both because it is not something real in the effect, but something of reason in the cause or an extrinsic denomination, which is the same; for that God is that for the sake of which a thing is made is not something intrinsic in things, nor in God Himself, but is an extrinsic denomination of God taken from the things themselves; and also because in those words the end is not signified as principle, but rather as terminus, and therefore there is not signified some emanation or influx of the final cause into the effect, which seems to be of the notion of every causality. And it is confirmed, first, because otherwise in every motion with respect to its terminus there would be most proper causality of the end, and in every act with respect to its object; the consequent is false; therefore. The sequel is evident, because the terminus is that for the sake of which the motion is, and the object that for the sake of which the act is. But the minor is evident, because otherwise the causality of the end would no more belong to the object of the will than of the other powers; nor would it be more in rational motion than in natural. Hence it is confirmed, secondly, because otherwise, as long as a thing is for the sake of some end, so long would it be actually caused by such end, as the visual power, which is for the sake of the act of seeing, or for the sake of the visible object, would always be actually caused by that end, because that denomination always lasts, that this power is for the sake of its act or object; which denomination can flow either from a past action, or from the natural propension of the power to its act or object. But the consequent is false, because the actual causality of the end is not without the actual causality of the agent, as I shall say at once; by that denomination, therefore, the causality of the end is not sufficiently declared. Especially because all place this causality in metaphorical motion, which is not sufficiently declared by those words alone, unless the matter is expounded more fully.

The second opinion is weighed

4. The second mode of explaining this causality can be that it is a certain metaphorical motion; which in common is so taken from Aristotle, I De Gener., c. 7, and St. Thomas, I-II, q. 1, a. 1, and other places which I shall report at once. Yet in the mode of explaining this motion this opinion is singular; for it says that this motion is such that of itself it precedes the act elicited by the will, not only in nature but also in time, because this motion results by a certain natural necessity from the final cause sufficiently proposed; but the act of the will remains in its freedom. Hence, although this motion with respect to the final cause itself is as it were second act, yet with respect to the will it behaves as first act. Which is explained and proved in this way, for by the very fact that the goodness of the end is sufficiently known and proposed to the will, it arouses it, and, so far as concerns itself, draws it to the love of itself; but the will, because it is free, can suspend its own act; therefore this motion of the end is distinct from the act itself of the will and precedes it; therefore in this motion the proper causality of the end consists. The antecedent seems to be established by experience, and its foundation seems to be placed in a certain natural sympathy which is between intellect and will, inasmuch as they are rooted in the same essence of the soul. But the first consequence is known per se; the second is evident, because by no other reason does it seem that this causality can be understood, both because what proximately follows after this motion in the will is some act of it, which, as I said above, is not causality, but the effect of the final cause; and also because, this motion being set aside, in the rest the end does not behave as a cause, but rather as a specifying terminus, which rather participates the causality of form, which all objects have which specify the acts of any powers whatever.

5. This opinion, however, is first of all foreign to the mind of St. Thomas, wherever he places the causality of the end in this metaphorical motion, for in q. 22 De Verit., a. 2, explaining this motion, he says: As the inflowing of the efficient cause is to act, so the inflowing of the final cause is to be desired or longed for; where he clearly thinks that the influence of the final cause is not in act until the will is moved by desiring or longing. He thinks the same in q. 5 De Potent., a. 1. And it is proved by reason, because it is an open repugnance that the end be causing in second act and that nothing be actually caused; but before the will elicits an act, nothing is caused in it; therefore neither can the causality of the end be in second act. The major is evident, both because to cause and to be caused are correlatives, and also because real causality must be terminated at something real and must in itself be something real, otherwise it would be nothing; if, then, in the will there is no new thing, or operation or effecting,¹ neither can the actual causality of the end be in it; nor yet is it in the intellect, as is established per se; therefore such causality of the end cannot be understood before every act of the will. And it is confirmed, first, because the end does not cause in act unless the agent also actually effects, for, as Aristotle said, III Metaph., c. 2, text 3, the end and that for the sake of which is the end of some action; and therefore the same Aristotle said, I De Gener., c. 7, that, the action ceasing, the final cause too stops; therefore in the same way, prior in time to the action of the agent being begun, the causality of the final cause cannot be in second act; but before the will elicits an act, no efficient cause moved by the end actually acts anything, and conversely nothing is actually made for the sake of the end; therefore neither does the end itself actually cause anything in the will. It is confirmed, lastly, by declaring the thing itself; for before the will is moved by eliciting its proper act, there is only the good object or end represented through the cognition or judgement of the intellect; but in the will there is nothing which was not before; therefore in all that time there is no arousing distinct from the judgement; but the judgement itself is not causality, but the sufficient approximation of the end so that it can cause; therefore the causality of the end posited in act before the act of the will cannot be understood. Most of all since neither can that causality be concerned with the power itself, since it does not yet behave otherwise but remains unchanged, nor with the act of the will itself, since that does not yet exist.

6. Someone will perhaps say that these reasons conclude that this causality of the end is not something new in the will itself which is its proper elicited act or free consent; but that nevertheless it can be some new mode of behaving, or, to speak more clearly, some simple affection through which it is actually and vitally inclined to the end, so as to love or intend it. But this is not said consistently in that opinion, for such affection, in whatever way it is feigned in the will, cannot be not elicited by it, otherwise it cannot be a vital motion or affection, but will be some quality by way of habit or first act, which can be feigned or thought of by no reason, as the reasons made so far sufficiently prove. But if that motion is elicited by the will, it is a certain act of the will; there is not, therefore, causality of the end before the act of the will.

7. But if it is said that that act is imperfect and by way of velleity, as they call it, but that the opinion which we are examining is to be understood of the perfect act and consent, against this stands, first, that that act, whatever it may be, is a certain effect of the end itself; therefore it is not the causality of the end; or if in it causality can be distinguished from effect, the same can be said of the first perfect and consummated act, nor will it be necessary to have recourse to such imperfect act. It stands against it, secondly, because the causality which the end exercises about such act has in it its proper effect, and therefore that is not the proper causality necessary for another consummated and perfect act, which we are inquiring into, but will only be an occasion and a certain disposition for that further effect. Finally, it stands against it because either that simple act is necessary or free; if it is free, then neither does it always result from sufficient proposal of the end, as that opinion said; nor yet is it necessary that it always precede the effecting of the consummated act of love, or intention of the end; it is not, therefore, per se necessary for the causality of the end, nor can such causality consist in it. But if that act is made naturally and without freedom, much less can it be per se required for the causality of the end about the free and perfect act; for imperfect acts or motions of this kind rise in us from the conjunction of appetite, or from some superior cause preventing our deliberation, and therefore these acts are only useful or necessary, some imperfection of ours being supposed, by way of disposition or arousing; but not because they are per se required for the causality of the end. Hence in the angels, in the soul of Christ, in the Blessed Virgin, and others, there was a perfect mode of operating from the causality of the end without acts of this kind.

The third opinion is proposed and persuaded

8. There is, then, a third opinion, which also constitutes this causality of the end in metaphorical motion. But it adds that motion of this kind is not posited in second act except when the will is moved in second act, and when it is so posited in reality it is not something distinct from the very act of the will. But, just as we said above that one and the same action, as it flows from the agent, is its causality, but as it is in the matter is also its causality about the form, so they say that one and the same action of the will is caused by the end and by the will itself, and as it is from the will is effective causality, but as it is from the end is final causality, and in the former notion is real and proper motion, because such action flows from the power as from its proper physical principle, but in the latter notion is metaphorical motion, because it flows from the object alluring and drawing the will to itself. This opinion is taken from St. Thomas, in the places cited, and I-II, q. 9, a. 1, where he says that the end moves the will metaphorically, thinking that in this its causality consists, although he does not declare it so expressly. Yet from bk. I Cont. Gent., c. 75, reason 5, it can be taken more clearly; for St. Thomas says that the causality of the end consists in this, that other things are desired for its sake. From which words I gather that the desire itself by which something is desired for the sake of the end, inasmuch as it is from the end, is called by St. Thomas the causality of the end. Again, that the causality of the end consists in this metaphorical motion is the common mode of speaking among authors, as is evident from Avicenna, bk. VI of his Metaph., tract. V, c. 5; Albert, V Metaph., tract. I, c. 3; and Hervaeus, Quodl. II, q. 1, and more clearly q. 8, part Ad rationes; Soncinas, V Metaph., q. 2. It is also taken from Alexander of Hales, I, q. 17, memb. 3. No one, however, so clearly and expressly declared the aforesaid opinion as Ockham, In II, q. 3, a. 2, where he says that the causation of the end is to move the efficient to acting; but that that moving is nothing else than the end itself being loved by the agent, or something for its sake. Hence below, answering a certain doubt, he says that the causation of the end is not prior in time to the motion of the agent, at least through love or volition by which it wills the effect to be executed for the sake of the end, or the end itself for its own sake.

9. By reason this opinion seems to be sufficiently proved by the attacks on the others and from a sufficient enumeration of the parts, because nothing else can be thought of which is the causality of the end; nor yet is anything else necessary in order that the will be understood to be moved by the end towards the end, and in order that its act have dependence on the end as end; therefore in that alone which this opinion affirms does this causality consist. It is confirmed and declared by a likeness, for the act of a cognitive power depends both on the object and on the power; hence the causality both of the object and of the power is nothing else than the action itself, inasmuch as it flows from the object and from the power, for as it is from the object it is called its causality, but as it is from the power it is the causality of that; so, then, the action of the will, as soon as it is made, necessarily depends on the will and on the end; that same action, therefore, inasmuch as it is from the will, is active dependence on it, but inasmuch as it is from the end, is final dependence. For as to this there is diversity between the end and the object of a cognitive power, for the object of a cognitive power concurs efficiently to its act, by means of some real form by which it is conjoined, or through its own entity, if it can be united to it through that; but the good proposed to the will concurs to its act only finally, because it moves only metaphorically, attracting the one proposed through cognition, even if otherwise it does not exist in reality.

The fourth opinion is rejected

10. There are, however, those who say that this causality of the end is not the action of the will as depending on the end, but conversely is the end itself objectively proposed through the intellect, as inflowing in its genus or concurring to the act of the will². But if you ask what that concurrence is, or what it adds over the end itself, they answer that it adds nothing intrinsic to it, but connotes the actual dependence of the effect on such cause. But, although this mode of speaking agrees with the preceding in this, that it says no other thing intervenes in this causality besides the end itself objected to the will by means of the intellect, and the act or effect thence resulting in the will, and the denominations thence arising by which both the end is said to cause the act and the act to depend on the end, nevertheless it displeases in this, that it says the end itself is its causality or its concurrence to the act, because concurrence never signifies the cause itself, but something which proximately flows from the cause in its genus, by which it causes the effect, whether that is distinguished in some way in reality itself from the effect, or only in reason, inasmuch as it is conceived as by which and which. Of which we spoke above, in treating of the causality of the efficient cause; but the proportional reason is the same. Indeed in this there is in a certain way greater reason, because the end sometimes causes not actually existing, but only objectively in the intellect.

11. But they say also that it is not necessary that the concurrence of the final cause exist really when it actually causes, but that it is enough if it exists objectively. This, however, is not rightly said, because to be only objectively is to be known; but in order that the final cause actually cause, it is not necessary that its concurrence be actually thought or known, but it suffices to think of the goodness of such cause, and conversely, although that concurrence is in objective being through formal and express thought about it and its fittingness, that is not enough for the effect to be posited in the will, as is established per se, because, all that thought standing, the will can not be moved. Therefore, although the final cause according to its being or its goodness is only objectively in the intellect, yet in order that it actually cause, it is necessary that its actual concurrence be posited in reality itself, because this concurrence in reality is nothing else than the dependence of the effect on its cause; but in order that the cause actually cause, it is necessary that the effect be actually caused in reality itself; therefore also that it depend really on the cause; therefore also that the actual concurrence, or what is the same, the actual dependence, exist in reality itself, and not only in the intellect, indeed this latter is irrelevant. But because this dependence of this effect of the final cause on it consists only in a certain intrinsic relation to such cause, which relation can exist in reality itself and be terminated at the cause as existing only objectively in the intellect, thence it is that the final cause can actually cause existing only objectively, but cannot actually cause unless its causality exists really, through relation to the cause itself existing objectively.

The third opinion is chosen and the question resolved

12. Hence from the attack on this last opinion the third remains more explained and confirmed, which is without doubt true and excellently satisfies as regards this effect which the end has within the created will, and as regards its causality. Nor does the objection made above stand against it, that the act of the will is rather the effect than the causality of the end. For in the first place in the very act of the will we can distinguish the action from the act, and we shall say that the act is the effect, but the action, inasmuch as in its genus it is from the end, is its causality, as must be said proportionally of effective causality. Next, even if in that act those two notions are not distinguished by the nature of the thing, but it is imagined to be pure action, nevertheless it is not repugnant that the same thing which is the effect of the cause, in that genus in which it is effect, be also the causality, when that effect is the action itself, and a distinction of reason suffices for them to be distinguished by way of causality or by way of effect, as is manifestly established in active causality.

13. It can seem more difficult to someone that wholly the same thing, or real mode, without any distinction in reality, be the causality of the end and of the efficient, since yet these causes are of diverse notions. But if what was said above about the causalities of the other causes is considered, wonder will cease. For the same union too, under diverse respects, is the causality of matter and of form, although those causes are of diverse notions; indeed the same change, as it is action, is the causality of the agent, but as it is passion, is the causality of matter, although action and passion are not distinguished in reality; and similarly the same action under diverse respects is the causality of the first cause and of the second. And the reason is that one and the same action through itself can be immediately caused by many causes, by each in its genus; and so by means of it the effect is caused by the same causes, and therefore by comparison to each of them it is the causality of each, and conversely is the proper dependence of such effect on such cause.

14. Another difficulty remains to be explained, because, although this mode of explaining final causality satisfies as regards the acts elicited by the created will, yet it does not satisfy as regards commanded actions and exterior or transient effects (to omit for the meantime the divine will and the actions of natural agents, of which we are to speak below); it seems, then, that the above opinion and doctrine cannot be applied to the aforesaid actions and effects, because the final cause does not move metaphorically the powers subject to the will, but only the will itself, which afterwards not finally but effectively moves or applies the lower powers to their actions; therefore the end as such has no proper causality in these actions, or that does not consist in such metaphorical motion.

15. In this matter it is first of all to be established that the exterior effects which are produced through these actions can be effects of the final cause inasmuch as the actions through which they are made are caused in some way in their genus by the final cause and depend on it; because, as we said above with Aristotle, the final cause does not actually cause except when the agent acts something³ for the sake of the end. Hence, just as the effect made by the agent, if it does not depend on it in being conserved, but only in becoming, is, when the action ceases, no longer being caused, but has been caused, so the same effect, as it is caused by the end for the sake of which it was made, when the action of the agent for the sake of the end wholly ceases, is no longer being caused by the end, but has been caused, and remains ordered to the end, either through intrinsic relation or propension, or through extrinsic denomination or relation from the past action.

16. The whole difficulty, then, remains about commanded actions, for in the way in which those have been caused by the end, they will be causalities of the same end with respect to effects or termini, for through them effects of this kind will depend on the final cause and only by reason of them will they be said to be made for the sake of such end. Of the commanded actions themselves, then, it can be said that, although physically and according to entity the external action is distinct from the interior act of the will, yet in the notion of action and in order to the causality of the end it has the notion of one, and arises from the same causality or metaphorical motion, because for the end, for example, to move metaphorically to willing to write and to writing itself are not two, but one and the same, because those two are so connected that they cannot be separated; for I speak of the volition which is by way of use and proximately commands the external action of writing. Hence it can further be said that the final causality which we said is in the interior act and identified with the elicited action itself is at the same time the causality of the interior act itself and of the exterior, which is necessarily conjoined with it, although in a diverse way, for with respect to the interior it behaves proximately and intrinsically, but with respect to the exterior more extrinsically and remotely. Nor for this reason will the end be called a cause per accidens of the external action, since it follows wholly necessarily and per se from its causality, and it so moves the will as at the same time and by way of one to move it to the execution of the action to be commanded by the will. Nor yet does it stand in the way that causality of this kind adds nothing to the exterior action except an extrinsic denomination, because such action is not called the effect of the end only because that extrinsic denomination is from the end, but because the action itself, as it is made here and now, truly proceeds from the motion of the end in its genus, even if that exterior action, taken physically and entitatively, could be made without that metaphorical motion and proper causality of the end, because it proceeds from such cause only by means of the internal action. Most of all because this causality is in a certain way moral and as it were artificial and intellectual, and therefore is not in all things to be equated with efficient causality, which is more physical and real. And so at the same time the difficulty touched upon at the end of the preceding section and referred to this place has been answered.

17. Lastly it can be added that the commanded action itself, in the way in which here and now it proceeds from such agent, is both the effect of the final cause by way of action and its causality with respect to the thing made for the sake of that end through the same action, for by means of it that effect depends on such end, and to be causality is nothing else than to be as it were the way by which the effect depends on the cause in such genus of cause. But in this dependence the effect is not to be considered as it were materially, as it is such a thing; for so it will not always require that dependence through such causality as per se necessary for its being, but it is to be considered formally inasmuch as it is the effect made here and now in such a way, in which way it necessarily includes order to such action and to the mode of acting of such cause. And so this reply almost coincides with the preceding, and we shall explain both better below in declaring final causality in the effects of God.

1. The sense of the present question is established from the preceding; for we are not inquiring into the notion of causing inasmuch as it says causation in second act, but inasmuch as it says the as it were formal first act constituting the final cause proximately apt and sufficient for causing. For just as in the efficient cause we distinguish the thing which causes from the proximate notion of causing, so in the final it seems necessary, because wholly the same thing can be both efficient principle and final and formal cause; it is necessary, therefore, that it exercise these offices under diverse notions; therefore that notion under which it exercises the office of final cause will be that which proximately constitutes the final cause as it were in first act.

Resolution of the question

2. About this matter, then, the common consent of all the Doctors seems to be that goodness is the proximate notion under which the end moves; and so that it is that which constitutes the final cause, giving (so to speak) power for causing. So St. Thomas thinks, I-II, q. 1, a. 1, and more at length III Cont. Gent., cc. 2 and 3, where he shows that to operate for the sake of the end is the same as to operate for the sake of the good; and I, q. 5, a. 4, he proves that the good has the notion of end; and there, in the solution ad 2, he declares of this causality that saying of Dionysius, c. 4 De Divin. nom., The good is diffusive of itself, namely, by finally attracting and alluring the will. Alexander of Hales has the same doctrine, I p., q. 17, memb. 3, and q. 34, memb. 1; and it is taken from Aristotle, II Phys., c. 3, text 31, where he says that end and good are the same, which he also repeats in V Metaph., c. 2; and in bk. I Ethic., c. 7, he says that that is to each the good for the sake of which he operates the other things; the same in bk. I Eudemian Ethics, towards the end. The reason, however, is that the causality of the end consists in the metaphorical motion of the will, by which it allures it to itself; but nothing allures the will to itself except inasmuch as it is good; therefore goodness is the notion of moving the will; therefore it is also the notion or principle of causing finally. I suppose the minor as certain, from the common consent of theologians and philosophers, saying that the will cannot be borne to anything except under the notion of good, according to that saying, the good is that which all things desire.

Whether evil as evil can be a final cause

3. But at once a controversy occurs with Ockham and other nominalists, saying that the will can be borne to evil under the notion of evil. So Ockham, In III, q. 13, dub. 3. Scotus also inclines to it, In I, dist. 1, q. 4, towards the end, and In II, dist. 43, q. 2. From whose assertion it plainly follows that evil as evil can also metaphorically move the will and consequently have the causality of the end, for if evil can be loved for its own sake, other things too will be able to be loved for its sake, if they are necessary and useful for obtaining it. And so it will come about that goodness is not the adequate notion and power of the end for causing finally, but it will be entity or something of this kind, as Ockham signifies.

4. Nevertheless this opinion is antiquated and deservedly rejected by the schools, as repugnant to the consent of Aristotle, Dionysius, Augustine, St. Thomas and all who think rightly, as is evident from Aristotle, bk. I Ethic., c. 1; Dionysius, c. 4 De Divin. Nom.; Augustine, II Confess., cc. 6 and 8; St. Thomas, I-II, q. 8, a. 1, and the other theologians, In II, dist. 43; Henry, Quodl. I, q. 17. See also Gregory of Nyssa, book On the Making of Man, c. 20; and Damascene, bk. II De Fide, c. 22. For the common axiom of all these is that no one operates intending evil. And this is most evident by experience. And the reason is that the faculty of the will would be most disorderly instituted if it could be borne to evil inasmuch as it is evil. For what can be more disordered than to will evil because it is evil? But the will can will nothing by elicited appetite except what is consonant with some natural inclination of the will itself, because from such inclination every elicited appetition is born, at least natural, because every appetition of this kind is referred to the object adequate and proportioned to the will or some part of it; but the natural inclination of the will is to that whole object; if, then, the will could be moved by its proper act to evil as evil, its natural inclination too would be to evil as evil; the natural inclination itself, therefore, would be disordered. But this is wholly repugnant, both because it was most wisely instituted by the best author, and also because it would be repugnant to itself. For the end or institution of the will is that through it man seek things fitting to himself and flee things unfitting; if, then, it had received an inclination to tend to the unfitting inasmuch as it is unfitting, it would formally and directly be repugnant to itself and to its end; and therefore Damascene rightly said, bk. II, c. 22: The will is borne to acting in those things which are consonant with nature. As Seneca said, bk. IV De Benefic., c. 17: Nor has anyone so departed from the natural law and put off the man as to be evil for the mind's sake.

5. And it is confirmed, for it is impossible that the intellect give assent to the false inasmuch as it is false; therefore also that the will pursue evil inasmuch as it is evil. The consequence is evident, because as the intellect is compared to the true, so the will to the good; and so great is the repugnance from the very terms between pursuit and evil as between assent and the false. Also, because if the intellect cannot judge by assenting to the false, then it cannot judge that evil as evil has whence it may be loved, for that is evidently and from the very terms false and repugnant to every intellect. Of which there is an open sign (that we may by the way solve all the arguments which are commonly made to the contrary), because we never judge that something is to be loved or pursued which otherwise we know to be evil, except because we judge it advantageous either for delight, or for taking vengeance, or for another similar utility. Therefore neither can the will be borne to evil as such, or what is known only to be evil. The consequence is evident, because, as will be said below, the will cannot be moved except by means of a judgement of reason by which something is sufficiently proposed as either to be desired or desirable.

6. And hence finally a reason is taken which pertains to the matter of which we are treating, because in evil as such, inasmuch as it is evil, there is nothing which can be apprehended or reckoned as a sufficient reason on account of which the will is moved. For either in evil the malice is considered, or the entity which underlies the malice. Malice per se and formally taken has nothing by which to allure or attract the will, because it itself is nothing, as we said in the foregoing. But the entity which can underlie malice has something of goodness; hence, if it moves the appetite, this is by reason of goodness. And it is confirmed, for in the election of means it is impossible that the will choose something as a means to the end because it is unfitting, or impedes the attainment of the end, which would be to choose the evil opposed to the useful good under the notion of evil; therefore in the intention or love of the end it is impossible that it be borne to something as to an end because it is per se unfitting, which is to will under the notion of evil opposed to the good desirable for its own sake. The antecedent seems known per se from the terms; for how can it be understood that someone from the intention of the end chooses what is repugnant to the end, inasmuch as it is such? For this would be a contradiction in the will itself. Indeed rather all who think rightly teach that, when there is a single useful means to the end, it cannot happen that the will does not choose it, if it truly and efficaciously intends the end; much more impossible, then, is it that it choose a useless means, as such. But the first consequence is proved, because evil as in itself evil is as repugnant to intention as the useless as useless to election; for just as the election of the useless, as useless, is repugnant to the intention of the end, so the intention of evil as per se evil is repugnant to the natural and adequate propension of the will.

Whether the indifferent as such can be a final cause

7. You will say that these arguments sufficiently prove both that evil as evil cannot cause finally and that good as good can, yet do not prove that only the good can have causality of this kind, or that goodness is the adequate notion of finalizing. Because between good and evil there can be an indifferent, either in reality, or at least by precision of the mind, inasmuch as the notion of being or of true can be considered prescinded from the notion of good; therefore this can be a sufficient reason for moving the appetite, and consequently for causing finally. I answer that in reality there can indeed be a being indifferent according to some notion of good, but not according to every one, because being cannot not be good, and so, when a being indifferent under some notion moves the will, it does not move it inasmuch as it is indifferent, but inasmuch as it has some notion of good. But if it happens that some being is indifferent under every notion of good with respect to the appetent, that is, that it is neither honest nor base, nor pleasant nor troublesome, nor fitting to nature nor unfitting (which perhaps cannot be found), yet, that being posited, such being could not have final causality in the will; because it would have no fittingness or conformity with it; but the will, since it is essentially appetite, is inclined only to the fitting as such; hence, since the notion of being of itself is indifferent to the notion of fitting and unfitting to the appetent, it is not of itself sufficient to move the appetite. But if sometimes some being seems to move the will only because it is not reckoned unfitting, this is because in every being something of goodness and perfection is apprehended to be in it, which, if from elsewhere it has no unfittingness, by that very fact is reckoned fitting by reason of its perfection.

8. Indeed, because that which is good in itself can be either fitting or unfitting to man, therefore not any goodness whatever, but goodness according to some fittingness to the appetent, is the sufficient notion of finalizing. On account of which Aristotle said, VIII Ethic., c. 5: The good indeed is lovable, but to each his own. How this is to be understood requires a long and theological disputation, both on account of the love of friendship and most of all on account of the love of God above all things. Now let it only be briefly noted that the proper good must not be understood only as that which turns to one's own advantage, but simply as that which per se befits or is consonant with the nature of the appetent. In which sense every end is comprehended, even if it pertains to the most perfect love of friendship.

9. Again someone will say: the will is not always moved by the end to obtain something, but often also to avoid something; but to this it is moved by the end by reason of malice; therefore not only the good but also evil as evil can have some final causality in the will. It is answered that, when a mobile withdraws from one terminus so as to approach another, the terminus a quo is not the end of that motion, nor does it arouse the mobile (we speak metaphorically) to withdraw from it, but the end is the terminus itself to which the mobile is borne, and if it could be finally aroused, it would be drawn only by it and consequently by reason of it would withdraw from the other terminus. So, then, the will is properly moved only by the good as by the end by which it is drawn to approach it through love, intention, etc.; but thence follows withdrawal from evil, which is not so much motion towards the end as something consequent upon the tendency to the end and as it were a certain means to obtaining the end. Hence to that very act which is hatred of evil, evil does not move except in the power of the good, because evil is not held in hatred except by reason of the good loved, and so in that act too goodness can be said to be the notion moving to pursue with hatred the opposite evil. For to hate evil under the notion of evil is nothing else than to hate it because it deprives of good, and so goodness is for those things the notion principally moving, as we shall say in a like case a little below about the election of means.

10. Finally someone will say: sometimes lesser goodness moves the will more to love than greater malice to withdraw, and conversely lesser malice sometimes moves more to flight than great goodness to pursue the end; therefore by the same reason it can happen that the will withdraws from the good inasmuch as it is good, or even if it is not evil, and conversely that it is borne to evil even if it is not good, because, as the dialecticians say, as simply to simply, so more to more, and conversely. It is answered: just as only the good can move the will, so too only the greater good, so far as concerns itself, moves more, provided it is sufficiently proposed. But that the will sometimes is not so moved comes from the freedom of the will itself. But this does not suffice for it to be borne to evil under the notion of evil, both because freedom cannot be exercised outside the object of the will, and also because, by the very fact that the will is borne to evil to experience its freedom, it is no longer borne under the notion of evil, but under some notion of the useful. Although this experiment of freedom always supposes in the object a sufficient notion of good or evil which on its part can found such use of freedom. But for this use, if it is only as to exercise, it suffices either that the goodness of the object, or the act itself or the love of it, be not reckoned necessary, as was handed down in the foregoing when we treated of free causes.

11. Hence, although the good, so far as concerns itself, is more efficacious in its genus for causing finally, yet, because it cannot actually cause unless the will itself lets itself be moved, or cooperates in its genus with its motion, which by its freedom it can not do, therefore from this head it can happen that a lesser good actually causes finally, a greater good being passed over. Which yet it could not do if it had no goodness, because then the notion of causing would be wholly lacking, without which the freedom of the will does not suffice for it to be moved, although, in order that it be not moved, the lack or negation of a necessary good suffices (as I said), even if it is not evil. But it will be otherwise if the use of freedom is not only as to exercise but also as to specification through a contrary act of hatred or similar, for then it is necessary that some notion of evil appear in the object, for hatred properly taken can be concerned only with the notion of evil.

12. I say secondly: not only the true good which is or can be in reality, but also the apparent good or that which is only reckoned, can be sufficient for exercising its final causality. So St. Thomas teaches, I-II, q. 8, a. 1. And it is sufficiently established by experience, for a man is often moved to seek some things which appear good, or delightful, which in truth are not such. Which is also manifest in the election of means; for we often choose what we reckon to be useful for the end, which afterwards we experience to be useless, or even impeding. The reason, however, is that the final cause does not cause except as known, as we shall say below; but, as regards cognition, the thing which is reckoned good behaves in the same way as if it were good in reality itself, because the same judgement is passed about it and it is reckoned equally true, and finally it is represented or proposed to the will in the same way.

13. This, however, commonly seems difficult in this conclusion: since final causality is true and real, how can a notion only feigned or reckoned suffice for this causality? For real causality cannot arise except from a real principle; but that goodness only apparent is nothing real, but rather feigned; therefore neither can it cause really. Indeed such goodness, since it is not in things but only in reason, does not seem able to be sufficient for moving the will metaphorically, for the will is borne only to things themselves inasmuch as they are good.

14. It is answered, first, that this final causality is real in such a way that it takes place in a certain moral and intellectual mode through the natural sympathy which is between the will and the intellect, and therefore for it no other real being is required in the cause except that which suffices for the motion between these powers through their natural consensus, and, because for that real being as represented in the intellect suffices, even if in reality it is not true, therefore apparent goodness too can suffice for final causality, although it is not true. And this is almost what St. Thomas says in the cited place, that elicited appetite follows the apprehended form and therefore for its motion apprehended or reckoned goodness suffices, even if it is not true.

15. But it can be added further that it is one thing to speak of goodness, another of the good thing, for the will is sometimes moved by a thing which is not truly good; in which sense the conclusion posited proceeds, namely, that sometimes a good only apparent causes finally. Nevertheless it can be said that the will is never moved except by true goodness; for it is never moved except either by delight, or by honesty, or by the advantage of nature, all which are true goodnesses (I omit the appetite of good in common, in which there is no deception). Hence in the proper formal notion which moves there is never deception, but this intervenes in the application of this formal notion to this or that thing, and for this reason indeed the thing which appears good moves; but the moving notion is not apparent but true goodness, although it is falsely attributed to such thing. As, for example, if someone loves theft in order to give alms from it, he is indeed moved by a reckoned good, yet by true goodness and honesty, namely by the honesty of mercy which he reckons to be in such act. And the same holds when a man seeks some object which he thinks delightful, but which in reality is not delightful, for he seeks true delight and is moved by it alone, but errs in applying it to a thing in which it truly is not. In this sense, then, it can be said that the notion of causing finally is always some true goodness, although it is not always some true good, because such goodness is not always apprehended or judged of the thing in which it truly exists.

16. I say thirdly: only that good which is good in itself or per se is sufficient for exercising final causality. It is declared, for the good, as we treated above, is only either honest, or delightful, or useful; of which the first two are good in themselves and per se, but the third only through relation to them, all which were explained there. The first two goods, then, suffice for exercising final causality, which can easily be proved. For the causality of the end consists in two things, or in one of them, namely, that it move the will to love the end for its own sake and other things for its sake, or to execute them; but each of those goods can achieve each of these. For the honest good is most desirable for its own sake as per se becoming, or per se fitting to nature; indeed this is the very notion of the honest good, as we noted in the said place with St. Thomas, I, q. 6, a. 6. But of the delightful good the same St. Thomas says, I-II, q. 2, a. 6, ad 1, from Aristotle, X Ethic., c. 2, that it is foolish to ask why it is desired, for delight itself per se has whence it is desirable. These two goods, then, are sufficient for causing the first motion towards the end for its own sake.

17. But from this motion is born another, which is to the means for the sake of the end; for that same good which is loved for its own sake moves to love other things for its sake, if they are necessary or useful for obtaining the good loved for its own sake. Each of these goods, then, is per se sufficient by reason of its goodness for exercising final causality as to each of its parts. In which office they behave mutually as exceeding and exceeded, for the delightful good both as regards us is wont to move more and to draw the appetite to itself, and delight is in a certain way the last perfection of operation lovable for its own sake; but the honest good, the greater and per se nobler it is, the more powerful it is of itself and by its nature for exercising this causality, and it can also cause nobler effects in this genus. Indeed rather, if we look to the institution of nature, only the honest good should have the proper notion of end, for delight from the intention of nature is not for its own sake, but for the sake of the operation to which it is joined, and therefore must be loved for its sake, of which more at length elsewhere.

18. But of the useful good, since it is not per se good, it appears sufficiently manifest that it is not sufficient for exercising final causality, because the useful good as such is not per se lovable; therefore it is not sufficient for exercising the first motion of the end. Again, inasmuch as it is useful, it is not that for the sake of which another is loved, for rather it itself is loved for the sake of another; therefore neither can it exercise the second motion or causality of the end. Indeed rather under that notion it is the effect of the end, because it is that which is made or loved for the sake of another; therefore the useful good as such cannot exercise final causality. Only honest goodness, then, whether moral or natural, and delightful goodness, can be the proper notion of causing finally. But here at once the difficulty about means occurred, whether they can exercise final causality, which we shall treat better in the following section.

1. The difficulty of this question can arise from a twofold head. The first is about means, whether they can exercise the causality of the end; for it seems manifest from the very terms that means cannot have the causality of the end; for only the thing which is the end can exercise the causality of the end; but the means is a thing distinct from the end; therefore it cannot exercise the causality of the end. On the contrary, however, is that the means as means allures the will to love it; therefore in this it exercises the causality of the end. And most of all because to one means another too can be ordered; then, therefore, that means which is prior in the order of intention exercises the causality of the end about the other which is ordered to it.

2. The second difficulty is about privations or negations, whether under this proper notion they can exercise the causality of the end, that is, judged and reckoned without error to be privations or negations, and not true beings. And the same of relations, especially of reason. And the reason of the difficulty is that these, as they do not have true entity, so neither goodness, and especially goodness lovable per se; therefore they do not have the power and proximate notion for causing finally. On the contrary, however, is that we often per se intend privations of this kind, and for their sake choose means, as someone's death, or something similar. Similarly we sometimes intend a relation of reason, as human dignities, or esteem among others, which consist in a relation of reason alone.

Whether means can exercise the causality of the end

3. About the former difficulty there are various ways of speaking. The first is that means too as means can exercise the causality of the end; in which this opinion openly contradicts the last part of the third assertion proposed in the preceding section. Gabriel, however, holds it, In I, dist. 38, a. 1, where, from the opinion of Gregory there, a. 1, he distinguishes that one end is most proper, another proper, another common or most common, and in this last way he says means have the notion of end and exercise its causality. Hence he says that even that means which is last in intention and first in execution, for the sake of which no other is chosen, participates the causality of the end. The foundation seems to be that every object of the will has the notion and causality of end; but the means as means, or that which is nothing but means, is an object of the will; therefore it participates the causality of the end. The minor is established, because the will truly and properly is concerned with the end by loving it; but that is the proper object of a power about which it is concerned. But the major is taken from St. Thomas, I-II, q. 1, a. 1, where he says that the end is the object of the will; but he speaks of the adequate object, both because he says that the end is related to the will as colour to sight; but colour is the adequate object of sight; and also because thence he infers that the will loves all things under the notion of end, because it loves all things under the notion of its object; which consecution would not be good unless the end were the adequate object. Aristotle also favours it, II Phys., c. 3, saying that end and good are the same; but the good is the adequate object of the will; therefore also the end.

4. The second way of speaking is that the thing which is a means, even if it is not loved for its own sake nor is lovable, can exercise the causality of the end, not however inasmuch as it is a means, but inasmuch as another means can be desired for its sake. Thus that means which is not first in execution, but intervenes between the end and the first means, is said to participate the causality of the end, not inasmuch as it is loved for the sake of the end, but inasmuch as another means is loved for its sake,¹ because under that notion it is that for the sake of which, and consequently has the notion of proximate end, and not of means. But that which is the first means, for the sake of which no other is loved, does not participate the causality of the end. Giles holds this opinion, In II, dist. 38, q. 2, a. 2; Gabriel, In II, dist. 1, q. 5, a. 1, and Ockham, In II, q. 3; and St. Thomas seems to favour it, III Cont. Gent., c. 2, where in the fourth reason he says: All intermediates between the agent and the ultimate end are ends with respect to the prior, and active principles with respect to the following; and in II Phys., lect. 5, he says that it is not of the notion of end that it be ultimate simply, but only with respect to the preceding. Aristotle thinks the same, I Ethic., c. 7, where he much favours this opinion, for he says that not all ends are perfect and desirable for their own sake; and in V Metaph. and II Phys. he numbers among ends instruments of art and riches, because they are made or acquired through other means, although they themselves too are means to further ends. But the reason has already been touched upon, because in them there is sufficient notion for moving the will to will something for their sake, and this is enough for exercising some office of final cause, even if they do not exercise all.

A principle necessary for the resolution of the question is established

5. Nevertheless I think it must be said that no thing can properly and (so to speak) by intrinsic denomination exercise the causality of the end except one which is per se good and desirable. Why I add those particles, properly and by intrinsic denomination, I shall declare below. I take this assertion, then, from Aristotle, II Metaph., c. 2, where he says that it is of the notion of end that other things be desired for its sake, but it itself not for the sake of others; where by this latter negation he circumlocutes that notion which we explain positively by saying that the end must be per se desirable through the proper goodness which it has in itself. For it is not of the notion of end, generally speaking, that it be not desired for the sake of another, but this is proper to the wholly ultimate end. Hence in I Ethic., c. 7, he says that in each series that is the end which is desired as ultimate, that is, in which the intention of all the means which are desired for the sake of the end rests. So too in II Phys., c. 3, he says that all means which are subordinated among themselves are for the sake of one end. Finally, in bk. I Magn. Moral., c. 2, he distinguishes: Of goods some are ends, others not; as health indeed is an end, but the cause of health is by no means an end, where he calls the cause of health a means to health. And it is proved by reason, for in each genus of cause that thing can cause in such genus which has the power or formal principle constituting in first act the cause of such genus; but goodness is the formal notion of the final cause, constituting it in first act sufficient for causing; therefore only that thing which has goodness can be a final cause by intrinsic power or denomination; but every thing, and that alone, which has in itself goodness and fittingness with respect to the appetent is per se good and desirable; therefore only a thing which is per se good and desirable can exercise the causality of the end.

6. You will say: the useful thing too, as such, has goodness in itself, since it has in itself utility, for utility is a certain species of goodness. But against this is what we said above in treating of goodness, disp. X, that the useful good, as such, is not something wholly intrinsic to the thing which is reckoned useful; for although utility, as it says only some power or efficacy, is something in the thing which is denominated useful, yet that whole utility is not good nor desirable as useful except on account of the goodness of the intended end, and as it underlies it. On account of which St. Thomas, I, q. 5, a. 6, deservedly said that useful things are not lovable for their own sake, but only by reason of the end. And therefore too the useful good as such is not reckoned good simply, nor by intrinsic denomination, because it is not per se fitting, but only as it underlies such end and from it receives fittingness as it were formally.

7. Secondly, then, I argue in this way; for that thing which is not per se good cannot move the will to love itself for its own sake; therefore neither can it move the will to love other things for its sake; therefore it can exercise no causality of the end. This second consequence is evident from what has been said, because the whole causality of the end is contained in those two heads. But the first antecedent too seems known per se from the terms, because, since only the good draws the appetite to love of itself, only that thing can draw the appetite to love itself for its own sake which according to itself and without order to another end is good. Hence it was not rightly assumed in the reason for doubting posited at the beginning that the means as means draws the will to love of itself; and further² it would be said that the end itself draws the will to love the means, for in truth to will the means for the sake of the end is nothing else than that the whole reason of willing it be the end itself; but the reason of willing is that which moves and attracts the will, and therefore it is also commonly called the motive of the will; but the means is as the material object, which is loved by reason of the end. And hence the prior consequence is easily proved, because what does not suffice to draw the will to love itself can much less draw the will to love another for its sake; but that thing which is not per se good cannot draw the will to love itself, as we have shown; therefore it can less draw the will to love another for its sake. The major is evident, both from that principle, that on account of which each thing is such is itself more such; and so, if the means is loved for the sake of the end, the end is loved more; therefore the thing which makes another be loved for its sake must make itself be loved more; therefore, conversely, that which cannot draw to love of itself will much less be able to draw to love of another for its sake. And also because the love of the means for the sake of the end proceeds from the love of the end; therefore, if the love of some thing as end cannot be caused by it, neither can the love of another thing for the sake of such end be finally caused by that end; which is to say that it cannot be an end, if by the name of end a true final cause is signified, as we are now speaking of it in order to the created will.

General reply to the proposed question

8. From this principle is gathered, first, the general reply to the question proposed in the title of the section, namely, that that thing can properly exercise final causality which has in itself goodness on account of which it is loved (either truly or in estimation, which is to be understood added in all similar expressions, lest it be necessary to repeat the same). This conclusion is evident from the preceding principle and its proofs. Wherefore we cannot descend in particular to designate the things which can cause finally, namely, whether God, or angel, or man, or substance, or accident, or riches, or honour, or other things of this kind, can cause finally; but in each and all it must be considered what goodness or fittingness they have per se, and, if they have any, according to it they will be able to be final cause, but if they have none, they will not be able. But only a twofold good is per se and according to itself good, namely the delightful and the honest, comprehending under the honest whatever is per se fitting to nature, and therefore whatever is such will be able under that notion to exercise the causality of the end; but what is not such never exercises the causality of the end except because it is reckoned such, and in this way riches or honours are often desired as end, although those things, if right judgement is passed on them, are not per se lovable or fitting, but only for the sake of another.

9. You will say: by the same reason the delightful good will not truly be sufficient for causing finally, because, if right judgement is passed on it, it is not lovable for its own sake, but for the sake of another. Indeed neither will knowledge, health and similar things be able to exercise final causality, because they are not lovable for their own sake, but for the sake of man. To the prior part it is answered by denying the sequel; for the reason is far diverse, because the delightful good, prescinded from every other extrinsic end, truly has in itself whence it is loved, and therefore is of itself able and sufficient for exercising the causality of the end; although, if it is to be desired by man with right, that is, honest, reason, one must not rest in it as in an end, but order it to some superior end, which is to be understood not only of the delightful good, but also of the good fitting to nature, or natural, as it is co-distinguished from the moral honest good. Hence for the sake of clarity it could be said that the delightful good according to true speculative or physical judgement is per se lovable, which is enough for it per se to suffice for exercising the causality of the end, and not only from the false estimation of the operator, but also from the proper force which it has in itself; although according to true practical and moral judgement, which is attended to through conformity to right and honest appetite, it is not to be desired as end by a man operating honestly. But it is otherwise of other things which lack all goodness of this kind; for these can be final causes neither according to practical judgement nor even according to true speculative judgement, but only from false estimation.

10. To the latter part it is answered by denying the sequel; for those things are truly lovable for their own sake, for they are per se fitting to nature. Nor does it matter that they are lovable only for man; for from this it only comes about that they are not lovable with the love of friendship, but of concupiscence, which does not prevent true and proper final causality, whatever Gabriel in the place cited above signifies. And it is evident, because such things, through the goodness which they truly have in themselves, allure and draw the will to themselves, according to their mode and capacity. For because they are such that by their nature they are adapted to man and are his perfections, therefore, although they are loved for their own sake, yet they are loved for man; and these two relations are not repugnant among themselves, nor are they compared as means to end, but as end of which and end to which, which integrate one complete end, as we saw above.

Resolution about the causality of means

11. Secondly, and chiefly, from the said principle is gathered the resolution of the prior difficulty about the causality of means. For the thing which is a means to another end can under some other notion be per se desirable, by reason of some goodness which it truly has in itself even prescinded from relation to that end, and under that notion there is no doubt that the thing which is a means can have final causality, because it does not have it as means. Indeed with respect to that it is something material and per accidens that such thing be a means or be loved for the sake of another end; nor is there any controversy about this. In another way, then, the thing which is a means can behave so that it has no notion of per se good, or at least does not cause through it nor is loved for its sake, but only inasmuch as it is useful; and under this consideration it must simply be denied that that thing as such is sufficient for exercising final causality. And indeed, if that thing is such that it is loved only for the sake of the end, the matter seems most evident, because then it is loved as pure means, which all philosophers distinguish from the end as end, and think rather pertains to the effect of the end than has the notion of cause. And all that we adduced in the proof of the first assertion confirms this too. But when this thing which is a means puts on the relation of terminus with respect to another means which is loved for its sake, it now seems in some way to participate the notion of end.

12. And therefore for the sake of greater clarity, and to declare the expressions of some grave authors, we can accommodate here the distinction which Gabriel adduces in the place cited; for it is one thing to speak of the end as it puts on the pure notion of terminus, another as it has the proper notion of final cause; for here we speak of it under this latter notion. And in this way we deny that such a means, even if another is ordered to it, exercises true final causality properly speaking and by intrinsic denomination, so to speak. And all that was adduced in the prior assertion proves this, because the means, even considered under this notion, does not have in itself whence it draws the will to love itself for its own sake, but the end itself, to which all the means are ordered, moves the will to love all the means and their subordination among themselves, or, what is the same, the same end moves the will to love some means immediately for its own sake, but some immediately for the sake of another means, but mediately or ultimately for its own sake. The very goodness of the end, then, is that which proximately and finally moves, although it does not always proximately and immediately terminate the relation or habitude of the means to the end; but final causality consists in metaphorical motion; this, therefore, is not in the means, even inasmuch as another is ordered to it, but is only in the end. And it is confirmed from the specification of the acts of the will, or of all the elections of means tending to the same end; for all those receive their species and honesty or malice from the end itself, as the theologians hand down more at length, in I-II, q. 18; therefore it is a sign that, although one means is ordered to another, yet, if all are desired only as means, only the end for the sake of which all are desired is that which through its goodness finally causes all those elections.

13. But if we speak of the end only as it is the terminus of the ordination or relation of another to it, so one means is called the end of another which is ordered to it, because it is the terminus to which it is proximately referred. For the remote means, as such, has no fittingness and proportion with the end except with the proximate means intervening; and therefore it is proximately ordered to it; therefore under this notion such a means participates the notion of proximate end. And the testimonies of Aristotle and St. Thomas adduced in favour of the second opinion confirm this; the common mode of speaking too favours it; for it is absolutely said that one means is loved for the sake of another; from which kind of expression Aristotle everywhere gathers the notion of end. You will say: if the means participates the office and notion of end under the notion of terminus to which another means is ordered, why will it not also participate the causality of the end, which consists in metaphorical motion? For the reason seems equal. Most of all because, just as, for example, the love of health moves to procuring evacuation or digestion, or something similar, so the desire of evacuation moves to taking a potion, or to walking, or another similar means.

14. It is answered, first, that the difference is that the proximate ordination of one means to another is attended according to that which is material in them, namely, inasmuch as one means can be the effective cause of that effect, and so one means can very well be ordered to another, and conversely one can be the proximate terminus of the ordination of the other according to that which truly and really is in it; and so it can participate the notion of end as terminus. But final causality formally comes from the end inasmuch as it is good, and because the goodness of the end is not intrinsically participated by the nearer means, even if another is ordered to it, therefore the causality of the end is not so participated by it as the notion or habitude of terminus. But the motion or natural resultance which is between the acts of the will themselves (inasmuch as from one the will is aroused to another) is not to be confused with final causality; for that causality between acts is rather effective than final, whether it is through proper physical efficiency or through natural sympathy and consent, of which elsewhere, for at present it does not matter. But the final notion is from the object itself; and therefore, although the desire of one means causes or arouses the desire of another, nevertheless in the genus of final cause that whole motion comes from the same end.

15. Unless someone finally wishes to say that, just as the means from conjunction with the end becomes lovable and desirable, so it becomes able to cause finally, at least the election of another means for its sake, and so participates final causality. Which indeed in reality is not diverse from what we have said; for at most this can be attributed to the means through a certain extrinsic denomination. For just as the means does not receive from the end some intrinsic goodness by which it becomes desirable, but only through extrinsic denomination and as it were information receives from it fittingness and objective desirability, so at most through a similar extrinsic denomination it can participate final causality; in very truth, however, that whole causality comes from the end itself and its goodness; and therefore I often said in the foregoing that properly and by intrinsic denomination only the end exercises final causality.

16. An objection is satisfied.—You will say: then, in the way in which the notion of end is attributed to means to which others are ordered, so it can be attributed to the means which is first in execution and last in the way of intention; for, although no other extrinsic means is ordered to it, yet the very act of the will which is terminated at it is ordered to it; hence too it can be said to be for its sake, according to the doctrine handed down above, sect. 3. Again, although that means through intrinsic goodness does not draw the will, yet as conjoined to the end, just as it is rendered desirable and fitting by it through extrinsic denomination, so through the same it can be said to cause finally, not through itself, but through the end as through its extrinsic form. It is answered, first, that it is no great drawback to grant this whole, which pertains more to the mode of speaking than to the thing. And if someone wishes to sustain the opinion of Gabriel in this way, he easily can; for St. Thomas too, I, q. 5, a. 6, calls the useful good as such the proximate terminus of the motion of the will. Nevertheless that mode of speaking, especially as to the participation of causality through extrinsic denomination, seems to me very improper; for strictly it is not the means which moves, but the end to the means, as I said above. Yet as to the habitude of terminus it can be said to be participated by the first means, inasmuch as it is the material object with which the act of the will is concerned, which alone St. Thomas in the cited place intends. Indeed under that notion under which the act is said to be for its sake, it no longer has the notion of first means; for the act itself in a certain way takes on the notion of the prior means, as I declared in sect. III.

The foundations of the other opinions are satisfied

17. What the adequate object of the will is.—The foundations of the other opinions almost do not need new solution, because in declaring the true opinion they have been partly solved, partly accommodated to confirming what we have said. Only to that which we objected in favour of the prior opinion about the adequate object of the will, it must be said that the object of a power is twofold, material and formal; the end, then, cannot be called the adequate material object of the will, because means too are the matter about which the will is concerned, as has been said; but the end can be called the adequate formal object, because whatever the will loves is either end or for the sake of the end; and St. Thomas intends this in the cited place. When, therefore, it is said that every object of the will has final causality, it is to be understood of the formal object, not of the material. And in the same way is to be understood what Aristotle says, that end and good are the same; for he understands it of the good simply, which is good in itself and per se; in which sense he also said, I Ethic., c. 7, that the good of each thing is that for the sake of which it operates. And what others say comes back to the same, that the end is the adequate motive object of the will, but not the terminative, and that final causality properly belongs to the motive object, but not to the purely terminative. Conrad, however, I-II, q. 1, a. 1, says that the end is the adequate per se object of the will, but the means is the per accidens object; which comes back to the same, provided that per accidens is not so understood that the will is thought not to attain the means itself in itself; for so it would be false that means are objects per accidens, for they are properly and in themselves loved; but per accidens is to be understood as through another, namely, through the end, and in this way only the per se object of the will can have final causality.

18. Whether there is some act of the will not caused by the end.—You will say: then there is no act of the will which is not from the final cause, because there is none which is not from its adequate formal object; but this seems false, both because there is some act in the will which is concerned neither with the end nor with means, as Scotus and some other theologians contend, In I, dist. 1; and also because simple complacency, or ineffective desire of an impossible thing, is not caused by the end, since it in no way moves to the attainment of the end. This objection demanded a long disputation, whether there is in the will a neutral act which is not caused by the end; but because this is not of our purpose, it is briefly answered to the argument by granting the sequel, namely, that there is no act in the will operating with reason and some deliberation which is not an effect of the end, as the reason made rightly proves and can be confirmed from all that was said in sect. 3. But to the prior part of the objection, we deny that there is an act in the will which is not in some way either about the end or about a means for the sake of the end, which Gregory proves at length, In I, dist. 1, q. 1, especially from Augustine, I De Doctrina christiana, c. 8, where he brings back all lovable goods to the goods which are to be enjoyed or used, that is, which are ends or means. Which Aristotle also thinks, III Eth., cc. 3 and 4, and it is also taken from St. Thomas, I Cont. Gent., c. 86. And the reason is that between the good lovable for its own sake and the good lovable only for the sake of another no middle can be found. For what Scotus thought, that the good in common or abstractly taken can be a middle, is not true, because the good in common is not abstracted except as per se lovable, because the other, which is loved only for the sake of an extrinsic end, is not good simply, but analogically and through extrinsic denomination, in which no common abstract concept is given, as is established from the foregoing. To the other part of the objection it is answered that in that simple or ineffective act about an impossible object, the impossible object itself is not loved by way of an end to be sought or attained, but either the delight itself which is taken from that act is loved by way of end, or some notion of good is loved which is represented in that impossible object either absolutely or under condition. For that is what moves the will to that simple affection, and that too is what participates the causality of the end, not indeed as to intention or election, but only as to the simple affection; for this too is concerned with the end.

How privations participate final causality

19. Finally, from what has been said above the resolution of the second difficulty posited at the beginning, about negative or privative objects, is plainly easy. To which some answer that the good which can cause finally is not to be taken so strictly as to be convertible with true real being, but more broadly inasmuch as it is convertible with being, as it analogically comprehends also privations or negations, according to what was said above, disp. XI, sect. 3, n. 3. For, as Aristotle said, V Ethic., c. 1, the lesser evil is in a certain way good; privations, then, and negations, although in truth they do not bring goodness, yet inasmuch as they remove some disadvantage, are reckoned to have some fittingness, by reason of which they can cause finally, which opinion is true in substance; but we can add that the lack of evil does not have the power of causing finally except in virtue of some positive good; and it can deservedly be said that a privation is loved more as a means to obtaining a good or to fully enjoying it than properly as an end, and therefore that that causality of the end which is in the effect of some privation is rather to be attributed to the good by reason of which that privation is loved than to the privation itself. For someone loves to lack pain for the sake of the delight opposed to it, or certainly for the sake of the love of his nature and the state fitting to it, such as is freedom from pain, even if another positive will is lacking. This only seems to stand against this doctrine, that sometimes someone can love not to be simply, which love cannot be caused from the love of some positive good, because not to be simply and absolutely leaves no foundation of positive good. But it must be said that even not to be itself cannot be loved, nor have the power of moving the affection, except from the love of the advantage of being itself; for no one loves not to be except to avoid some grave disadvantage of being itself, which is apprehended as greater with respect to his own nature, which he loves for its own sake, than wholly to lack being. And so it comes about (which is wonderful) that from excessive love of his own being someone can desire not to be. Read St. Thomas, I, q. 5, a. 2; Hervaeus, Quodl. VIII, q. 8; Durandus, In IV, dist. 50, q. 2; Ferrariensis, III Cont. Gent., c. 19; Soncinas, IX Metaph., q. 16.

How relation participates the causality of the end

20. To the other about relations, some contend that not only real relations but also those of reason can exercise the causality of the end. Others deny that power even to real relations, as Hervaeus, Quodl. II, q. 1, and quite consistently, if he holds that real relation has no perfection. And certainly I think that no relation either of reason, or of those real ones which are called predicamental and are thought to be only through resultance from foundation and terminus—none (I say) of these relations is lovable for its own sake, but only by reason of its foundation or on account of the concomitance of its terminus; for he who loves fame does not love the resulting relation, but the real esteem of himself, which he thinks very fitting to himself, and so of others. Wherefore, if false estimation does not intervene, these can never exercise final causality. But it is otherwise of transcendental relations, which per se have their entities or are included in the concepts of some absolute things; for therefore they can be per se good and fitting, as is evident of the habitude of knowledge, of sight, and similar things, and so they can exercise this causality. I omit also the divine relations, which by another superior reason can obtain this causality, most of all since they essentially include the whole goodness and perfection of the essence.

1. This question seems to coincide with that which is commonly treated about the object of the will, whether the will can be borne to the unknown; in truth, however, they are not wholly the same, although they are very connected; for, even if the will were borne to the unknown, the final cause would not on that account cause unknown, but rather it would then have to be said that the will elicits its act without the proper causality of the end about it, because then in truth the will would be moved not drawn nor moved by the object, but tending to the object from its sole efficacy. And so the present question does not wholly depend on that other, although conversely, if the will cannot be borne to the unknown, it is rightly inferred that neither can the end cause unless it is foreknown.

The end does not cause unless known

2. I say, then, first: in order that the end cause, it is wholly necessary that it be foreknown. This is the received opinion of all philosophers, whom we shall review below, and especially in the following section. And it is proved, first, a priori from the mode of causing of this cause, which is by metaphorically moving and alluring the appetite. For this metaphorical motion, as was explained above, is founded on the natural consensus and sympathy of intellect and will, which cannot be understood except by means of the acts of such powers; for while they do not operate, they neither move nor are moved, nor have any vital consensus. But in this consensus it is necessary that the act of the intellect precede, because it, through its act or object, behaves as mover and the will as moved; therefore for this metaphorical motion which the final cause exercises about the will, its previous cognition is necessary.

3. Secondly, because, in order that a real cause cause, it needs some being; but the final cause does not necessarily demand being of real existence proper and in itself; therefore at least it requires being in cognition, and so it comes about that the end often causes when it does not exist, as was seen above; but never if it is not known. So much so that, although sometimes it really exists, if it is not apprehended, it moves the affection not at all. So that for this cause, among others, it was deservedly said: Hidden treasure and unseen wisdom, what profit is there in either? And from the same root it comes about that the end, even if in reality it is good, yet if it is not known as such, but falsely apprehended as evil, does not allure but rather draws back the will.

4. The Aristotelian pronouncement.—Thirdly, this is confirmed a posteriori from the fact that the will can be borne only to the known good. Which truth is as it were a first principle and axiom of all philosophers and theologians. For Aristotle, III De Anim., c. 10, says that the appetible does not move unless perceived by mind or imagination; with whom all the interpreters there agree, and excellently St. Thomas, I, q. 82, a. 4, and I-II, q. 3, a. 4, ad 4, and q. 9, a. 1. And it is the express opinion of St. Augustine, bk. X De Trin., cc. 1 and 2: No one (he says) can love at all a thing wholly unknown; the same, bk. XV, c. 26, where he says that love arises in us from the knowledge of the mind; the same, bk. VIII, c. 4, and bk. III De Liber. arb., c. 25, and often elsewhere; and St. Gregory, bk. V Moral., c. 23, and bk. XXIII, c. 12, and bk. XXXI, c. 12; and excellently Bernard, book On the Interior House, cc. 18 and 19, and book On Grace and Free Choice, not far from the beginning, and sermons 7, 8 and 52 on the Canticle; and Anselm, in the Monologion, c. 48: No thing is loved without memory or understanding of itself.

5. But the a priori reason of this truth is to be taken from the principle posited by us in the assertion, namely, that the final cause cannot cause unless known; another being added, namely, that the will cannot move itself unless in some way finally moved, and therefore cannot be borne except with previous cognition. The minor or second proposition is established by experience; for vital appetite cannot begin its vital appetition from itself alone, unless in some way it is allured and moved by the appetible. But the reason can be given either from the general condition of a vital power, especially of one which acts by immanent action, which cannot act unless in some way moved or determined by its object; but this motion with respect to appetite is metaphorical. Or the reason can be given from the condition of appetite; for every appetite follows some being and some form or nature; but elicited appetition does not follow immediately from natural being itself or natural form, as is established, and therefore it is necessary that it follow the apprehended form and the known being which comes from it; hence, just as without natural being natural appetite does not follow, so neither without cognition does elicited appetite follow. But there is the difference that natural appetite, because in reality it is not distinct from the nature itself or the natural faculty, accompanies it as it were formally or as it were by natural sequel, in our way of conceiving; but elicited appetite is of a far other notion, and is an act distinct from the apprehended form or from the concept, both formal and objective; and therefore it is not caused by it formally, but finally by the good object applied through cognition.

Whether God can bring it about that the will loves the unknown

6. And from these reasons the theologians more frequently infer that not only according to the order of nature is it necessary that cognition precede elicited appetition, but also that by absolute power it is impossible that it happen otherwise, or that the will be borne to the unknown. Which opinion St. Thomas intimates in the places cited, and Henry teaches it more openly, Quodl. I, q. 15; and Gabriel, In II, dist. 25, q. 1, a. 3, dub. 3; Denis the Carthusian, book On the Praises of the Solitary Life, aa. 36 and 37. And this opinion seems true to me and sufficiently proved by the reasons made above. But it is excellently declared from those two principles, namely, that the will in its act depends essentially on final causality, because it cannot desire unless metaphorically moved or aroused by the good which it is going to love; and that the final cause wholly necessarily and essentially requires to be known in order to cause, because metaphorical motion cannot be understood except by means of cognition, as has been sufficiently declared.

7. There were not lacking, however, theologians who said that God can bring it about that the will loves without previous cognition. So thinks Paludanus, In IV, dist. 49, q. 1, a. 2, n. 29; it is also commonly attributed to Gregory there, and to Ockham, q. 25, ad 7 and 15. Some mystical theologians too¹ asserted that in the highest contemplation one sometimes arrives at that state in which the will loves without previous cognition. These authors do not explain, however, whether then too the final cause causes without cognition, or whether the will then loves without the proper concurrence of the final cause; and indeed they would say this latter more consistently; for then the object would be only the terminus of the act of the will, but not the principle, and consequently not the cause. But if it were true that the will could love by receiving an act which it did not itself effect, that opinion would be more intelligible; for then it would be enough that that action, inasmuch as it is from an extrinsic cause, had also a final cause. Yet, since the will cannot love except by vitally eliciting love and moving and inclining itself through it in a vital mode, it cannot be understood that it begin in itself a motion of this kind unless aroused and allured by the object through final causality, which cannot be without cognition.

What kind of cognition is necessary for the causality of the end

8. But at once various questions occur here, which, because they are the same as are treated about the object of the will, I shall only indicate and refer to their proper place. One is, what kind this cognition is which is required for causing finally, namely whether intellective is necessary, or sensitive suffices. In which two can be included; one is whether sensitive cognition suffices to move the will, and this part does not pertain to the present; we suppose, however, that cognition of the intellect is necessary in order that the will be moved, because only the intellective power is proportioned to the will for moving it; of which matter it is discussed in I, q. 9, aa. 1 and 2, and it is touched upon by Cajetan, q. 10, a. 3, on account of certain words of St. Thomas there, ad 3, saying that the will is moved not only by the universal good apprehended through the intellect, but also by the particular good apprehended through sense, which are not to be so understood that the apprehension of sense is thought sufficient for such motion, but so that these material goods which sense apprehends can move the will too inasmuch as by means of sense they reach reason. The other part included in the said question could be hypothetical, whether, if the will were moved by an object apprehended only through sense, that motion would suffice for final causality, or (what is the same) whether that motion would be final causality, about which question the reason is the same as about the similar absolute question, whether the motion of the sensitive appetite by a good known through sense is final causality, which we shall explain in the last section of this disputation.

9. Another question, consequent upon the preceding, is what intellective cognition is necessary, namely whether apprehensive suffices, as Scotus, In II, dist. 6, q. 1, seems to opine, or judicative is necessary. Of which matter it is treated in I-II, q. 9, a. 1. And it can scarcely fall into doubt that judicative cognition is necessary about the object under the notion of the fitting and about its fittingness. Which is the open opinion of the Philosopher, II De Anim., c. 3, who in this sense says that bare phantasy does not move the appetite, but opinion; and in c. 7 he denies that the appetite is moved until a judgement of good or evil is present; and bk. IV Metaph., c. 4, text 18, is an excellent testimony. For he thinks it so ascertained that for a determinate motion of the will a determinate judgement about the fittingness of the thing to which the will is moved is necessary, that by this experiment he refutes the philosophers denying the first principle and shows that no thing at once is and is not, but only one of these determinately. The same is the opinion of St. Damascene, bk. II De Fide, c. 22; and of St. Thomas, I-II, q. 9, a. 1, and I, q. 53, a. 3, and often elsewhere. And the reason is clear, because until the intellect judges the object to be fitting, it does not yet know its fittingness, for pure apprehension prescinded from every judgement is indifferent to that which is apprehended being reckoned so to be or not to be; and therefore he who only apprehends and does not judge that the stars are even does not know that they are even, but remains doubtful and ignorant; apprehension of this kind, then, about the fittingness of a thing cannot be enough to move the will, as experience itself also sufficiently teaches; therefore neither for causing finally; judgement, therefore, is required.

10. You will say: the sensitive appetite is moved without judgement from the apprehension of the object; therefore the will too can be so moved. It is answered that the antecedent is false; for, as St. Thomas says, I, q. 59, a. 3: The sheep flees the wolf from² a certain judgement, by which it reckons it harmful to itself. But such judgement in the brute is not through reasoning, nor through composition, nor through formal cognition of that notion on account of which the thing is fitting, but is through a simple and natural estimation of the fittingness of such thing. But the human intellect attains perfect judgement about fittingness and about the formal notion of such fittingness, both by composing and also by reasoning; but the superior intelligences judge in a superior way through simple acts. But whether sometimes in man, in order that the will be moved, cognition of the object through a simple act suffices, which, although it does not say that it is or is not so through formal composition and division, yet is not pure apprehension but includes virtual judgement and cognition that such object is fitting, is disputed by the theologians; and it is probable that such a mode of cognition can suffice for some simple affection of the will; and perhaps in this sense Scotus spoke above, and more at length Marsilius, In II, q. 16, a. 1; Major too and Gabriel, In II, dist. 6. Yet for the proper and formal motion for the sake of the end, of which we now treat, a more perfect judgement is necessary, which is not had without reasoning or composition or division, because it is necessary to know either the proper and formal fittingness which is in the end, or the proportion of the means to the end, which cognition is not had except through the comparison of one to another, which does not take place without composition and reasoning and the perfect judgement which is thence procured. And therefore the indeliberate operations of the will are not thought to be properly for the sake of the end, as St. Thomas noted, I-II, q. 1, a. 1, ad 3, because, although they do not take place without some cognition of the intellect, yet it is imperfect, and in mode is like imaginary estimation. But here at once a doubt arose about the will of the insane, whether in it the proper causality of the end has place, of which I shall speak at once.

11. Again, it is commonly doubted whether this judgement must be practical or whether speculative suffices, of which matter too many things are disputed by the theologians in the cited places. But from what was said above by us about the use of human freedom, and about the mode in which the will can be determined by the judgement of the intellect, a sufficient resolution of the said doubt can be taken, so far as is necessary for the present. And because it depends much on the use of words, it is necessary to distinguish them. If, then, by practical judgement we understand some act of the intellect so judging of the end that per se and by its force it is able efficaciously to determine the will, so it must be said that such practical judgement is not required for final causality, because the motion of the end, or the judgement through which the end is applied, does not impede the use of freedom; for such practical motion would be wholly contrary to the will, as we showed above. But if by practical judgement is understood a judgement about the fittingness of the end, not only according to itself but also with respect to the man judging, not only in common and abstractly but also in particular here and now, and consequently judging not only about the object itself or end, but also about the act itself or tendency to the end, that is, so that not only the object is judged to be fitting, but also that here and now it is fitting to will it—if such a judgement (I say) is signified by the name of practical judgement, it is true that judgement practical in this way is required for final causality; and in the same sense, speculative judgement co-distinguished from this practical judgement does not suffice.

12. In which sense I understand the saying of Aristotle, III De Anim., c. 9, text 42: The contemplative intellect says nothing at all as to whether something is to be fled or pursued; but motion is always of one fleeing or pursuing something. For that he speaks there of practical judgement or command in this latter way and not in the former is evident from text 47, in which he adds: The intellect sometimes commands, and reason says to flee one thing or pursue another, but the man does not obey and is not moved, but acts by desire, as is wont to happen in the incontinent. But the reason why such judgement is required is clear, because, as was also said above, while the will is moved, it wills not only the object, but also in its way wills here and now its proper act and motion; therefore it is necessary that judgement be passed about this whole and about such fittingness. But that such judgement suffices is evident, because it sufficiently applies both the fittingness of the object and of the practical motion towards it; but whatever else is demanded can be founded neither in the notion of the final cause nor in the mode of operating of the will; indeed rather on that side on which it is free it is repugnant to it; therefore.

13. Whether the insane will something for the sake of an end.—But at once a difficulty occurs, because neither does such practical judgement seem necessary, otherwise the causality of the end will not have place in the insane or in children before the perfect use of reason, which seems to be against experience, because by words they show that they know the notion of good by which they are moved and the utility of the means to the end. It is answered by absolutely denying the sequel; for, although these men cannot exercise practical judgements in order to honest or depraved morals, because the cognition of honesty requires perfect use of reason and integral judgement, yet they can have practical judgement about the thing as here and now operable and fitting under some lower notion, as is the notion of the delightful or the notion of fitting or unfitting to animal nature, which is found in health, for example, and the utility which is in the means with respect to such end. For, although these are insane, they are not deprived of all discourse and reasoning, through which the final cause may be sufficiently applied so as to be able to have some causality of its own, although not the most perfect.

14. Whether cognition is a per se cause of finalizing.—Lastly, it can be inquired about this cognition, which we say is necessary for causing finally, whether it is required only as a condition necessary for this causality, or also as a principle or per se cause. Which doubt can have a twofold sense. One is whether the cognition of the end, besides that necessity which is taken on the part of the final cause, has another per se causality about the act of the will, on account of which too it is necessary. In which sense this question is not to be treated at present; for it coincides with that one, whether cognition concurs effectively to the act of the will as a proper principle per se inflowing into it, which matters nothing to the present question about the final cause. For it is certain, as I said above, that the final cause, which is applied through cognition, does not inflow effectively into the act of the will; but whether the very act of cognition by which such cause is applied has from elsewhere power for sufficiently causing the act of the will is irrelevant to final causality, although it is more probable that cognition does not have that power of effecting the act of the will, as was touched upon in the foregoing and is to be disputed more at length in the science of the soul. The other sense of that doubt is whether the being known which the final cause has through cognition is to it the notion of causing finally, and therefore cognition is not only a necessary condition but also a per se principle of this causality; and this doubt is commonly reckoned grave, which demands the following section.

1. The former opinion.—The first opinion affirms that the end moves according to the being which it has in cognition, not according to real being; and therefore that cognition is not only a condition without which not, but is the formal notion of causing finally. This is thought to be the opinion of Avicenna, VI Metaph., c. 5, and Soncinas holds it, V Metaph., q. 3, and some other modern Thomists; and they attribute it to St. Thomas, I-II, q. 31, a. 3, ad 1, where he says that the object of animal appetite is the apprehended good, and therefore the diversity of apprehension pertains in a certain way to the diversity of the object. And similarly in I, q. 80, aa. 1 and 2, he says that appetite varies according to the form or apprehension which it follows, and so he distinguishes three appetites, natural, sensitive and will; for the first follows natural form without apprehension, the second follows form apprehended through sense, the third follows form apprehended through the intellect.

2. From which doctrine the first reason for this opinion can be conceived; for that which on the part of the object distinguishes appetites essentially is not only a condition, but also the formal notion of moving, or of the moving object; but diverse apprehension is a sufficient notion for distinguishing appetites essentially; therefore. The minor is St. Thomas's above. But the major is established from the common doctrine that powers are distinguished by formal objects, not by conditions of objects. Hence St. Thomas in the cited place, when he had said in the body of the article that appetite is a moved power, but is moved by the apprehended appetible and therefore is distinguished by it, adds in the solution ad 1: It is not accidental to the appetible to be apprehended through sense or intellect, but belongs to it per se. For the appetible does not move the appetite except inasmuch as it is apprehended, hence the differences of the apprehended are per se differences of the appetible. Hence the appetitive powers are distinguished according to the difference of the things apprehended as according to proper objects. And St. Thomas has the same, I-II, q. 30, a. 3, ad 2, where similarly from diverse apprehension he distinguishes natural concupiscences from non-natural ones; and Cajetan there notes that from that reply it is manifestly had that apprehension with respect to the object of appetite does not behave as the approximation of active to passive, but as objective notion.

3. And this reason is confirmed; for in the same intellective appetite the effect of the final cause varies very much from diversity of cognition; but a mere condition or application of the cause could not suffice for so great a diversity. The antecedent is evident, for the cognition of God through clear or obscure, intuitive or abstractive vision causes, as many hold, a specific diversity in love, and, at the least, is the cause that one love is free and another necessary. Again, the same good apprehended absolutely causes love; as absent and to be acquired it causes desire or intention; but as present it causes joy, which acts are diverse in species; and in the same proportion are distinguished, about evil apprehended as absent or present, sadness and fear. Again, the acts of virtue and vice in the will are not distinguished from the object according to its real being, but according to its apprehended being; hence it comes about that, if someone from erroneous conscience wills to give alms thinking he does evil, that is not an act of virtue but of vice; and conversely, he who from invincible ignorance wills to steal in order to give alms, thinking he does well, does not do an act of vice, but of virtue, properly and according to the true real species of virtue. Finally a similar argument is that the good does not move such as it is, but such as it is apprehended; and therefore we said above with Aristotle that for the causality of the end it does not matter what it is like, but what it is reckoned; but to be reckoned is the same as to be apprehended.

4. The second principal reason for this opinion is that that being which per se and alone the final cause requires in order to cause is not only a condition, but the formal principle of causing; but the being of existence is not required in the end for causing; but known being is per se necessary and that alone suffices; therefore. The major seems known from the terms, because to be the formal principle of causing is nothing else than to be that which per se primo and formally is required in the cause in order that it can cause. Hence in the foregoing we often said, and below shall also say, that the being of existence with respect to the efficient cause is not a required condition, but the very notion of causing, because it is the very entity of the thing and the first being which is required for causing. But the minor, as to the former part, has been sufficiently proved in the preceding section, and that that necessity of apprehension is per se by virtue of the final cause is established from the mode of its causality, which is through metaphorical motion; for this per se proceeds from objective being, not from the being of the thing in itself. As to the other part too it is established from what has been said, for it has often been shown that the end causes before it is; indeed even that which never will be, or even sometimes which cannot be, if yet it is apprehended as possible.

5. The latter, contrary opinion.—The second opinion is that the end moves according to real being and that that is the formal notion of moving, and consequently that the cognition of the end is only a condition or approximation necessary for a cause of this kind. Cajetan taught this opinion at length, I-II, q. 1, a. 1, about ad 1, and thinks it is the opinion of Averroes, XII Metaph., comm. 36, inasmuch as he says that health which is in reality causes finally, although as it is in the soul it effects the desire of itself. And it can be taken from St. Thomas, I, q. 82, a. 3, inasmuch as he says that the will is inclined to the thing itself as it is in itself; and from the Philosopher, whom he cites there, in VI Metaph., text 8, saying that good and evil, which are the objects of the will, are in things. Ferrariensis holds the same opinion, I Cont. Gent., c. 44, where he says that to be in the mind is only a condition required for finalizing. Javellus too holds it, V Metaph., q. 6; Ockham, In II, q. 3, a. 2; and Gabriel, In II, dist. 1, q. 1, a. 3; and it is also taken from Scotus, In I, dist. 1, q. 4.

Judgement is passed between the aforesaid opinions

6. Between these opinions this latter seems to me simply true; and the whole matter appears so clear that there can scarcely be reason for dissenting, unless some equivocation is mixed in the words themselves. Which will easily be evident if we distinguish those things in which the authors of each opinion agree, or which are so manifest that they must necessarily agree in them.

7. The end, in order to cause, does not need actual existence.—First, then, all agree that the end does not need real or exercised (as they call it) existence for causing finally, in which sense it is clear that the being of existence is not the notion of causing finally, indeed not even a necessary condition. I add also that neither true being of essence nor possible being of existence is in reality necessary for causing finally; for the apprehended suffices, and the reasons of the first opinion prove only this in great part.

8. The will is borne to attaining the end not in known being but in real being.—Secondly, it is certain that the will does not tend to the end so as to attain it in known being as such, but so as to attain it in its proper real being, which it apprehends in it according to its condition, and in this sense it is most certain that being in cognition is not the notion of finalizing, but only a necessary condition. The prior part becomes evident by examples and by declaration of the thing itself. For he who intends health or riches does not intend to know them or think of them, but to attain them in reality according to true real existence, and the same of others. But the reason is to be taken from what was said in sect. 5, that the formal notion of causing of the final cause is its goodness and fittingness; but the thing which moves as end does not have its goodness and fittingness in objective or known being, but in order to its real being; for health is fitting so as to be present, not so as to be apprehended; therefore the formal notion of moving is its real being, inasmuch as it is fitting or good, or its real fittingness, inasmuch as it is founded in real being itself and renders it good and desirable. It is confirmed, because the end moves according to that being according to which it satiates the appetite of the agent after it has attained it and without which it does not rest; but the end is so compared to the will according to real being and not according to apprehended being; therefore. The major is established, both because that is first in intention which is last in execution; and also because the end is that to which the impetus of the agent tends; but it tends to that which being attained it rests. The minor too is clear, because the mind does not rest in the apprehension of the end unless it attains it in reality itself, and without attainment of this kind the intention of the agent is thought to be frustrated. And the authors of the first opinion do not deny this, as Medina finally confesses, I-II, q. 1, a. 1, although perhaps not very consistently, as will be established from what is to be said.

9. But I said that the will tends to the end according to real being according to its condition, because sometimes it happens that the end itself of the will operating is none other than the cognition of some object, as when we intend or desire to see God; for then that being seen pertains to the formal notion of such final cause; and similar is the case when a man desires as end only the contemplation or speculation of some truth. And in this way too the theologians say that a man can sometimes delight in cognition alone and not in the thing known, except according to known being, from which then the act receives its goodness or malice. Although, however, in these and similar examples cognition itself is desired as end, yet it has its proper real being, according to which it is desired, and such cognition even then is not the notion of finalizing inasmuch as it is something prerequired on the part of the end in order that it move the will, but inasmuch as it is a certain action which per se is judged fitting and as such is proposed to the will as sufficient to move it, or as the terminus to which it tends. And so, according to an accommodated distribution, it is universally true that the end moves according to real being, which by means of apprehension is objected to the will; for according to it it is judged fitting, and inasmuch as it is judged fitting, it moves.

10. Cognition is only a condition necessary for causing finally.—Thirdly, it must be said that the apprehension or judgement of that real fittingness, properly and formally speaking, is not the notion of moving or finalizing, but is a necessary condition by way of approximation necessary for such genus of causality. As to this the second opinion speaks more truly and properly, and it is proved because being in cognition is not the goodness or fittingness according to which the end moves, as has been proved; therefore neither is cognition itself the formal notion for the end itself in order that it move; it will therefore be a necessary condition. The consequence is evident from sufficient enumeration of parts. Wherefore, just as in the efficient cause local approximation is a required condition, so in the final cause a quasi-animal or vital approximation is a condition required for such mode of causing, because, since the motion of this cause is metaphorical, it must take place through the natural consensus of the cognitive and appetitive powers, as has often been said.

11. Hence it must be added, fourthly, that this cognition is such that by reason of it, or rather by means of it, the notion or formal principle of finalizing can be varied, not because it itself is the formal motive notion, but because it applies a diverse formal notion of moving. And in this the authors of the first opinion seem to have laboured under an equivocation. But it is declared from the aforesaid likeness of the efficient cause; for, although he who applies a cause acting per se is only a cause per accidens, yet if he is able to apply diverse causes having diverse principles of acting, he will be able from that side to vary the formal notion of acting, and consequently to be the cause of diversity in the effect. So, then, because the apprehensive power is universal, it can apply diverse objects and diverse formal notions of moving; and therefore, although it itself is not the notion of finalizing, it can be the cause or occasion of such notion being varied. And by a similar reason the apprehensive power can apprehend the same material thing under diverse notions, either truly or apparently; and thence too it comes about that from diversity of apprehension or judgement the motion or causality of the end is changed; not because formally and per se that variety comes from the apprehension, but because it applies an end formally diverse, as has been declared.

The foundations of the former opinion are dispatched

12. And according to this last assertion all the testimonies and reasons which the former opinion brought are excellently declared and dispatched. For whenever St. Thomas says that the diversity of apprehension pertains to the diversity of the object, it is to be understood to pertain not formally, but applicatively, so to speak. Or otherwise it can be said (and it comes back to the same) that the diversity of apprehension, not that which holds itself on the part of the subject, but that which holds itself on the part of the object, varies the appetite and its object and the causality of the end. But I call conditions of apprehension on the part of the subject that it be clear or obscure, certain or probable, and similar ones, which do not redound to the application of the object under a diverse notion of goodness or fittingness; but when the diversity of apprehension reaches to this, it is said to be diverse also on the part of the object.

13. Hence to the first reason the major must be distinguished; for that which on the part of the object distinguishes appetites essentially, if it does this per se primo, will be the formal notion of the object; but if it does this only as applying a diverse formal object, it can be only a required condition; and in this way apprehension concurs to this diversity. And according to the same doctrine is to be understood that intellective and sensitive appetite are distinguished because they follow the apprehension of sense or of intellect; for if this distinction is to be reduced to the apprehended object, it consists in this, that through sense the object is applied under a diverse notion of fittingness to sensitive or rational nature. And although the intellect can sometimes apprehend and propose the notion of fittingness to sensitive nature, yet this is with respect to it as it were material; for its adequate notion is more universal, and in that very thing it applies the formal notion of such good far otherwise than sense, and so that whole diversity, inasmuch as from apprehension it redounds to the object, takes place only as through an applying condition. And the same must be said to all the examples which are adduced in confirmation; for vision and abstractive cognition, if perhaps they are the cause that loves are diverse in species, it is because the goodness of God through vision is applied far otherwise even on its part, so that according to all His perfections formally and distinctly known in one most simple perfection clearly seen He moves the will of the seer, whereas in abstractive cognition He moves only as known under the determinate notion of some attribute or under some very confused notion of good. And similarly, if the necessity which is greater in one love than in another comes from the object, it is because through vision both the object and the love of it are apprehended as here and now more necessary. So too the good absent or present does not vary the acts on account of the apprehensions alone, but because the thing itself and the condition apprehended in it is apt to cause a diverse motion in the appetite; and the reason is the same of the other examples, as each one will easily be able to understand by applying each to the doctrine handed down.

14. To the second reason it is answered that in each premiss taken there can be equivocation. For when it is said in the major that that being of the cause which per se and alone is required for causing is the formal notion of causing, if it is understood of the exercised being of existence, it is false in the final cause, because, as has often been said, it does not always require this being for causing. But if it is understood of the being of existence absolutely, namely abstracting from whether it is then when it causes, or whether it will be, or is reckoned, so it is true that the notion of causing in the cause is some being of this kind. But in this sense the minor is false, because, although the end when it first moves often does not have this existence in reality itself except in apprehension, in which way it is said to be first in intention, yet in that apprehension it is objected and represented according to another real being, on account of which the will is moved.

1. The reason for doubting is taken from what has been said so far about created intellectual agents; for in these the causality of the end does not have place as to external actions except by means of causality in the will itself of the acting cause; but the end cannot have its causality in the will of God; therefore neither in the effects or external actions which proceed from that will. On the contrary, however, is that God is most properly the end of all creatures, whence He is also properly said to operate all things for His own sake; therefore He is the final cause of all things and actions which proceed from Him.

Whether in the free decrees of the divine will there is causality of the end

2. About this doubt two things are to be briefly declared. First, whether and in what way the end exercises its notion or causality about the free determinations of the divine will, which are as it were acts immanent in it. Second, what is to be said of the transient actions which go forth from the divine power, and consequently also of the effects at which they are terminated. About the former part, Soncinas, V Metaph., q. 2, thinks that in the divine will proper causality of the end is found. His foundation is that the motion of the end is only metaphorical; but this metaphorical motion falls upon God, because the divine goodness, for the sake of which God acts, moves the will of God; therefore final causality too falls upon the divine will. Secondly, because God loves for the sake of His goodness as for the sake of the end; but by this nothing else is signified than that the divine goodness moves the will of God to the love of His essence; therefore. Thirdly, because God loves creatures for the sake of His goodness; but to love one thing for the sake of another is nothing else than from the love of one to be metaphorically moved to the love of another; therefore God is so metaphorically moved by Himself as end. Fourthly, the reason intimated above can be brought, because otherwise the effects of God as they are from Him would not have a final cause; for the final cause has no effect except by means of the agent, which it moves to act; if, then, it has no causality about the agent, neither can it have causality about the effects of the agent.

3. It is answered negatively.—This opinion, however, is wholly false. Hence it must be said that the end cannot exercise its causality on the divine will as to the immanent acts or free determinations of the same will. This is taken from St. Thomas, I, q. 19, a. 5, where in this sense he generally denies that there is any cause of the divine will, and I Cont. Gent., cc. 86 and 87, he says that, although there is some reason of the divine will, yet there is not some cause. Alexander of Hales the same, I p., q. 35, a. 5; Driedo, On the Concord of Free Choice, bk. I, tract. 1, c. 4, memb. 1, ad 4. Ferrariensis thinks the same, on the said c. 87, who notes that, although the divine goodness according to our way of understanding is the cause of the divine will, yet not according to real causality. Which is also to be understood in a sound way as to the former part; for it is not to be thought that objectively or on the part of God there is causality in Him, even in our way of understanding, otherwise we should understand falsely, but that on our part we understand and explain the reason of the divine will after the manner of causality, because we cannot conceive or explain divine things except after the manner of created things. Moreover, in the same sense, St. Augustine, bk. LXXXIII Questions, q. 28, denies that a cause is to be sought of the divine will, on account of which He willed to create the world, and gives the reason because every cause is efficient, which I think is to be so understood, as I also expounded above, that is, because in every true causality some efficient cause intervenes.

4. And hence is taken the first reason of this truth, because in the divine will there is no true efficiency about the act immanent in it, even as freely terminated to external objects; therefore neither can true causality of the end have place about such act. The consequence is evident from what was said above; for the causality of the end does not have place except in order to efficient causality. Secondly it is declared more fully, because the act of the divine will, as to the entity essential and necessary to it, cannot have any true cause in any genus, because as such it is being by essence and wholly independent. Nor yet can that act, as freely terminated to creatures, have a real cause, because as such it adds nothing real to the necessary entity of the same act; nor can a real cause be feigned which has for effect only a respect of reason. Wherefore those who think that the free determination adds to the divine will something real which simply could not be in it can quite consistently posit, or even must posit, this genus of causality about that act; for, as I think, they are compelled to posit effective causality too, which, as it is absurd, so the foundation from which it follows is false, as I shall show below in its place. Nor does Soncinas proceed by this way, because not only about the free determinations, but also about the act itself, as it is the necessary love of God, he admits that final causality, which, taken strictly, is improbable by every reason, because that act as such is being by essence itself, and therefore independent, and uncaused under any notion whatever. Hence further, if the free determination, as it is something real, is nothing besides the act itself, and as it is something of reason truly is not but is conceived or feigned from our mode of conceiving, it comes about that under no notion can that act have a true cause.

The arguments in the opposite are answered

5. To the arguments it is answered that, just as God in a most eminent way loves Himself through Himself without any causality, either effective about the love, inasmuch as it is conceived by us as a vital act, or formal about the lover himself, inasmuch as the lover is constituted by such love, so it is to be understood that God in a most eminent way loves Himself for His own sake and other things too for the sake of His goodness without any final causality about the same love, either of Himself or of others. And so, when He is said to love Himself, metaphorically moved or allured by His goodness, the expression is metaphorical, taken from the way in which we conceive divine things after the manner of human. In which way too Boethius said, bk. III De Consolat., prose 3, that implanted goodness lacking envy impelled God to operate external things.

6. Hence to the first it is denied that the metaphorical motion of the end has place in the divine will as in ours; for in ours that motion is called metaphorical in such a way that yet it is true causality, because it is true dependence, in the act elicited for the sake of the end, on the end itself; but in the divine will there is not such metaphorical motion, but a certain eminent notion of loving, which, as it is without distinction of acts or powers, so also is without any true motion even metaphorical. Wherefore an equivocation in the word metaphorical motion must be guarded against; for with respect to us that particle, metaphorical, is added to distinguish that motion from the motion of the efficient cause, but not to exclude it from the whole latitude of motion and real causality properly so called; but when God is said to be moved or allured by His goodness, the whole expression is metaphorical, to explain only the reason of the divine will.

7. How God is said to love Himself or other things for the sake of His own goodness.—And by these things the second and third reasons have been answered; for that particle for the sake of, when God is said to love Himself or other things for the sake of His goodness, does not signify a true cause of the love itself, but only a reason (as I said) of the divine will. But it is false that God loves Himself for His own sake as for the sake of an end; for God is not the end of Himself; for who ever so spoke? or how can He have an end who has no principle? Unless perhaps He is called His own end negatively, because He has no other end; for so God is said to be from Himself. But in this sense He is not His own end through final causality, as neither is He from Himself through efficient. Likewise it is false that to love one thing for the sake of another is the same as from the love of one to be moved to the love of another, if that from signifies proper causality or distinction in reality between one love and another; for strictly, for the truth of that expression it suffices that one be the reason of loving the other. Hence, just as when God is said to be immortal because He is immaterial, that particle because designates not a true cause but a reason, so He is said to love creatures for the sake of His goodness, not because it is a cause, but because it is the reason of loving them. And just as God, by that act by which He necessarily loves Himself, freely loves creatures without real addition or augmentation, so the same act as terminated to God can be called the reason, in our way of conceiving, why it is extended (so to speak) to creatures, no proper causality intervening. For, just as that termination takes place in a most eminent way without real augmentation, so also without real causality. In which way Dionysius said, c. 4 De Divin. nom., that divine love did not allow God to be without offspring.

Whether there is causality of the end in the external actions and effects of God

8. The fourth reason of that opinion requires that we explain the second point proposed at the beginning, namely, how in the actions and effects of God ad extra there is true final causality, if in the will of God itself such causality is not found. And the reason for doubting has been sufficiently proposed at the beginning and in that fourth reason. On account of which someone could grant that in the effects of God there is found properly an end to which they are ordered and for the sake of which they are made, but not that proper final causality is found. For, as Gabriel notes, In II, dist. 1, q. 5, at the beginning, end and final cause are not wholly the same; for end as such says only the terminus to which the operation tends, or to which the motions are ordered; but the final cause is that which moves the agent to operate. Wherefore, if there is an end which does not move the agent through proper causality, there will be able to be an end which is not a final cause taken in propriety and strictness. Thus, then, it can truly be said that God operates all things for His own sake as for the sake of the ultimate end to which all things are ordered, yet not through the causality of the end, but through a more eminent mode free from all causality. But this mode of speaking does not wholly satisfy. First indeed, because by the opinion of all theologians God is the final cause of all things, as St. Thomas hands down, I, q. 44, a. 4. Secondly, because Aristotle defines the final cause as that for the sake of which something is made; but God is truly and properly that for the sake of which creatures are made, according to that of Prov. 6:¹ The Lord hath made all things for Himself. Thirdly, because the final cause as such includes no imperfection, indeed is thought to be the first and most perfect of all causes, in the way to be explained below; therefore it belongs to God properly and formally and with supreme perfection; but it does not belong to Him except with respect to effects ad extra; therefore.

9. Wherefore it must be said that, although the final cause does not properly cause its effects except in some way by means of the agent which it moves and allures to operate, yet, in order that the end be the proper cause of the effect of the agent, it is not necessary that it first have some proper causality in the agent itself. For, although this happens in created intellectual agents, because they immediately move or apply themselves to operating or loving through some real motion and proper causality, yet in the uncreated intellectual agent this is not necessary, because without any change of itself or real addition, dependence or causality, it applies itself (so to speak) or determines itself in a most simple and eminent way to freely loving and operating. But the final causality of God with respect to effects ad extra consists in this, that God, in view and love of His goodness, produces effects outside Himself; hence the very operation which He has ad extra essentially depends on God both in the notion of efficient and also in the notion of end, because it regards God both as omnipotent and as supremely good, who by reason of His goodness both is worthy that all things be ordered to Him as to the end, and in the said eminent way inclines Himself to communicate His goodness to others for its sake. And so the reply to the reason for doubting is easy; for we deny that causality of the end within the agent itself is always necessary in order that it can have place outside it in its other effects, in which way we shall also declare below that exemplar causality has place in the effects of God without any proper causality within God Himself.

10. An occurring doubt is dispatched.—And hence is easily dispatched the doubt which Cajetan touches about the said a. 4, q. 44, I, whether it can be granted that God, as agent, has a final cause, which is the same as to ask whether the action of God ad extra has a proper final cause. For it must be said that it indeed has a final cause. For God truly and properly exercises that action for the sake of some end which He intends. Likewise, because, as St. Thomas says in that article, the end of the agent and of the patient is the same, although in diverse ways; but the discourse is of the agent as agent, and of the patient broadly, as it extends to the effect made by the agent; but the effect of God as such has a proper final cause; therefore the action of God as such has the same final cause, which, although it is not the end of God, is yet the end of the effect of God, and consequently also of His action; for the end to which the effect is ordered is that which moves the agent to operate; hence he orders his action to the same.

11. An objection.—But at once a difficulty arises: for the action of God is the very essence of God; therefore it cannot have a final cause. In which objection the Thomists stick and labour; and Cajetan answers that that action, as to the thing which the action is, does not have a final cause; but formally, inasmuch as it is action, has as final cause the very goodness of God. But the reply does not satisfy, because either that action as action adds something real to God Himself, and so it will not be in God; or it adds nothing real, and according to that it cannot have a final cause. Some moderns answer that action as such adds only an intrinsic respect of reason, and as to that has a final cause. And they add that, since the end moves the agent metaphorically, it is not necessary that between the end and the agent or its operation there be real distinction, but that a distinction of reason suffices and that the agent be determined by the end to action, whether that determination is by a real mode or by a mode of reason. But this doctrine is false and falls into the opinion of Soncinas, and from it it plainly follows that the love of God, as freely terminated to creatures, has a proper final cause, which however has been shown to be wholly false. And the sequel is evident; for in that free determination too there is real identity and a mode of reason coming in its way from God as from the end. Likewise, it is false that a relation of reason is of the intrinsic notion of a real act, since that is nothing. And therefore it can no more be understood that it is caused through proper final causality than through proper efficiency. And therefore other Thomists deny what we have said, namely, that God so operates for the sake of the end that that end is the cause of the action of God, but only of the passion, so to speak, or effect, or also of the becoming itself. In which indeed they seem to speak consistently; for according to them the action of God is nothing else than the volition of God; but the volition of God cannot have a final cause. But from a false foundation they were compelled to depart from the true opinion.

12. The true reply.—And therefore it is more easily answered by denying the antecedent; for the transient action of God is not God, nor in God, but in the creature; and therefore it can have a final cause and be ordered to an end. And so, although God does not have an end of His being, He yet has an end of His transient action, which, if it is the proximate end, can be something outside God; for God acts ad extra so as to communicate Himself, which communication is something outside God, and universally the action can be said to be ordered to its terminus as to its end; but if the discourse is of the ultimate end, it is God Himself, not because He intends to acquire some advantage or good for Himself, but because He acts for the sake of His goodness to be communicated and manifested. And Durandus declares this opinion well, In II, dist. 1, q. 6, although he mixes in some things which are not true, which it is not now necessary to examine.

1. The reason for doubting.—This question is general about all agents lacking intellect and will, to all of which it is common that they cannot refer or order their actions or means to an end. And hence the reason for doubting arises; for the proper causality of the end is not without this ordination, as those particles for the sake of which, and on account of which something is made, by which the causality of the end is commonly declared, sufficiently declare; and therefore it is difficult to find or declare final causality in the actions of these agents and in their effects, as it comes from them. On the contrary, however, is that these agents too act for the sake of an end, as Aristotle proves at length in II Phys., c. 7; but operation for the sake of an end cannot be understood without the causality of the end. And about brutes there is a special difficulty; for they are truly moved to love from some cognition of good; therefore in that effect and work there intervenes the metaphorical motion of the known good; therefore that pertains to true final causality. And experience confirms this; for we see the swallow so gather straws or effect something similar as is expedient for its end, and so of others.

The old opinion about natural agents

2. In this matter there was an ancient opinion of the old philosophers denying that the works of nature come from the intention of some end, but that they have so come about by chance, either from the concourse of atoms rashly so concurring, or from the necessity of matter, as Aristotle disputes in the cited place, II Phys., cc. 7 and 8, against Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Democritus and Epicurus. Which opinion is so absurd that it does not need refutation. It must be noted, however, that it is one thing to treat of the constitution of the whole universe, and of the action of universal nature for composing it and so ruling it that it can be conserved, another of the proper actions of the single natural agents. The former action or effecting is in truth not the action of some natural agent lacking intellect, but is the action of the supreme author of nature, who by His wisdom founded and moderates the whole nature of the universe; and therefore that action does not pertain to the present question, nor can it be doubted of it that it proceeded for the sake of an end intended by its author, and therefore from the causality of the end, according to the doctrine of the preceding section. And the very beauty of the universe and the wonderful consensus and ordination of its parts and of all causes most evidently teaches this. From which not only the holy Fathers but also the wiser philosophers understood that there is one author and governor of this universe, who constituted and ordered all things to an end intended by Himself, as we shall treat more at length below in demonstrating that God exists, and the Conimbricenses have indicated many things on this matter learnedly and briefly, bk. II Phys., c. 9, q. 1.

3. Here, then, we inquire only about the actions of natural causes, whether they are wholly particular, as fire, plants, etc., or in some way universal, as the heavens. Of which moreover it is certain and clear that they do not operate certain actions by chance or contingently, but that each natural agent from the propension of its proper nature has a definite operation, and mode of operating, and a certain terminus to which it tends through its operation. Which is also evident by experience, for a stone by its natural motion is always borne downward, fire always heats, from diverse seeds diverse living things are procreated, and some powers and organs are destined for this office, others for others; and single things have that form, situation, and all the rest necessary for operating in that proportion which is necessary for such actions or effects. Which can be seen in all natural things, and especially in living things and animals. And this was necessary for the fitting composition and government of the universe itself, for since it consists of various and contrary things, which also exercise various and sometimes contrary actions, if all things were not so constituted that each would orderly perform its offices, there would be the greatest confusion in the universe itself and the things themselves could by no means be conserved¹; but in order that harmony and order of this kind might arise from so many things, it was necessary that single things tend by their actions to destined ends or termini, from which the good of the whole universe would arise. Likewise for this reason we see natural motions regularly perfected in the same way, and rarely failing, and that not without some extrinsic impediment occurring. Likewise in their works natural things so behave as is expedient in order that they arrive at their connatural terminus, which terminus being attained they cease from operating. All these, then, are manifest signs that these natural agents operate not by chance and rashly, but by tending in a definite mode to some certain goal.

4. The error being rejected, in what the difficulty is placed.—Now there remains only the question (which in part seems able to pertain to the mode of speaking) whether by reason of this determination these agents are to be said to act for the sake of an end, and (what pertains more to us) whether their actions can be said to be properly caused by the final cause. For some simply deny each mode of speaking, because the agents themselves are not moved by the end, in which properly the causality of the end consists. Likewise, the end with respect to these actions does not behave as principle, but only as terminus; for the lower place with respect to the stone is not the principle of the motion by which it descends, but only the terminus; but the end, as we have often said, as it has only the notion of terminus, is not a cause, but as it is in some way a principle. But others think that those expressions are simply to be admitted, because Aristotle absolutely says that natural agents operate for the sake of an end, and says that the form is the end of natural generation, and signifies that it is properly a final cause. Likewise, because nature seems to exercise these its operations with the highest art and industry through means very proportioned to the end.

Resolution about the causality of the end in merely natural agents

5. Nevertheless, the proper mode of speaking in this matter is that the actions of these natural agents are for the sake of an end and are effects of the final cause. Not, however, as they precisely go forth from the natural agents themselves, but as they are at the same time from the first agent, which operates in all things and through all things. Or conversely (and it comes back almost to the same), as the proximate agents themselves underlie the direction and intention of the superior agent. And therefore the natural agents themselves are not so much said to operate for the sake of an end as to be directed to an end by a superior agent. So the wiser theologians and philosophers explained this matter, St. Thomas, q. 103, a. 1, and III Cont. Gent., c. 25, where he uses the common example of the arrow, which tends to a certain goal, yet does not direct itself to it, but is directed by the archer. Albert the same, in II Phys., c. 2; and there other philosophers, and Simplicius, text 78; and it is taken from Aristotle there, and I De Caelo, c. 4, text 32, where, while he conjoins God and nature, saying that they do nothing in vain, he sufficiently indicates that nature in acting for the sake of an end is subordinated to God. And in the same way, in bk. II De Partib. animal., c. 13, he says that nature does nothing in vain; and there he says that nature wills this or that for the sake of an end, which cannot be understood of nature except on account of its author. And in the same sense he says, IV De Generat. animal., c. 2: All things which are made by nature or art are by some reason. And hence too flowed that trite axiom, the work of nature is the work of an intelligence, as is found in Averroes, XII Metaph., comm. 18; and Themistius, I Phys., text 81, and I De Anim., text 23. Finally, therefore, Hippocrates, whom Galen imitates, bk. I De Usu part., calls natural agents learned and unlearned: unlearned in themselves, learned in the direction of the first cause.

6. And so it comes about that in these actions, as they are from natural agents, there is not proper final causality, but only relation to a certain terminus; but as they are from God, there is final causality in them as in the other external and transient actions of God. For the adequate principle of these actions is not only the proximate natural agent, except perhaps in a qualified sense, namely in such order; yet absolutely the chief is the first cause; and therefore in the adequate principle of such actions is included an intellectual cause intending their end.

7. Why natural things are affected with diverse dispositions.—Hence further Aristotle rightly concludes that the first root on account of which natural things have these dispositions, or these organs, or these parts and similar things, is not to be taken from matter alone, but from the end. For if matter is taken according to itself, it is indifferent and has no necessity of these dispositions or properties; but if it is supposed as already affected with these or those dispositions, these have already been introduced for the sake of some end or form, and the form itself needs them for its conservation or for some operation; but the operation itself again is either for the conservation of the species or of the individual itself, or at least for the communication of its perfection; for in these natural agents there are not operations which themselves are ends; for this is proper to intellectual things. And so every connection and connatural necessity which is per se in these natural things is taken from order to the end. Nor does it stand in the way that natural properties necessarily belong on account of intrinsic emanation from the form, because one relation is not repugnant to the other, but they have subordination among themselves, for that necessary emanation is reduced to the efficient cause, which is subordinated to the final; for nature gave to such form the power that such properties should emanate from it for this reason, because they are accommodated to the end for the sake of which is the thing which is constituted through such form. Thus, then, both in the constitution and formation of these things and in their action the concurrence of the final cause is found; but the proper intention of such end is not in the natural agents themselves, but in the first cause.

8. What necessity there is of asserting the connection of natural things and their direction to an end.—But it can seem to someone that this mode of acting for the sake of an end is devised without cause, and is beside the intention of Aristotle. For in the first place Aristotle, in XII Metaph., seems to think that God does not know these lower things, let alone care for them; and in the book On the World to Alexander he signifies that they do not think rightly of God who think that God is occupied in caring for these lower actions. Next, if, per impossibile, God did not concur to the actions of natural agents, but let them perform their motions independently, nevertheless a stone would descend downward, fire would generate what is like itself, and so of the rest; this is not, therefore, final causality, but mere natural necessity. And it is confirmed, for if natural agents acted from divine intention, they would never err in their actions, nor fail in attaining their termini; the consequent is against experience, since monsters are often generated, which are called sins of nature. The sequel is evident, because the divine intention can neither be frustrated nor err.

9. It is answered: of the mind of Aristotle it is already sufficiently established from what has been said, and we shall show more at length below that, according to his opinion, God has knowledge and providence of these singular and lower things; which he indicates not obscurely below, bk. XII, at the end, while he subjects the whole universe to God as to the supreme prince and leader. But to the first reason it is answered, first, that from that impossible hypothesis it follows that nature operates most orderly tending to an end without any direction or intention of the end, which per se is sufficiently absurd. For in the same way someone could argue that, although this world were not founded by another, if it were of itself as it now is, it would have a most fitting order without the causality of the end. This, however, does not prevent that in fact, just as it cannot be except as caused, so it cannot be except as caused by the end. So, then, we say that the motions and actions of natural things, just as they cannot be without the concurrence of some intellectual agent, so they cannot be without the causality of the end. I add next that, if per impossibile God did not concur per se and immediately to all the actions of natural agents, nevertheless they would have to be said to be mediately ordered to an end by the author of nature, who both gave natural agents such powers for the sake of such actions and willed the actions themselves to be for the sake of certain ends and generally for the sake of the good and conservation of the universe.

10. Many effects in nature of which no sufficient cause can be given besides the end intended by the first cause.—Hence finally I add that there are many motions or actions in these natural things of which no sufficient reason can be given from the private properties or inclinations of single things; for water ascends upward to fill a vacuum, of which the reason cannot be given from the peculiar nature and proper impetus of water, but from the end which is placed in the perfection of the whole universe, which must be intended by another superior agent. Similar is the case of the water of the sea, which so contains its impetus and swelling waves on the shore that it never covers the earth; namely for the safety of mixed bodies and living things, which end the supreme Governor of nature intends. From these, then, we understand that, when these natural things are moved or operate according to their proper and peculiar inclinations, since through them they also serve the advantages and conservation of the whole universe and of their species, or also of individuals and especially of man, in them too they operate from direction to an end, through subordination to a superior agent.

11. To the confirmation it is answered by simply denying the sequel; indeed rather Aristotle, II Phys., text 82, thence confirms that these natural agents act for the sake of an end, because, just as art intending an end sometimes does not attain it, so in the actions of nature, because they intend a certain end, thence follow monsters or sins of nature, because they cannot always attain their end on account of an impediment occurring². Otherwise, if nature did not tend to a certain end, there would be no monsters in nature, because it would no more stray from the goal by effecting a monster than by effecting anything else; for a monster properly is a defect of nature failing from its end. But what was objected about the intention of the author of nature does not stand in the way, because that intention is not always absolute and efficacious, or (to speak in the manner of the theologians) by the will of good pleasure or consequent, but by the general or antecedent will, which is as it were a conditional intention, which consists in this, that God wills the perfect effect to follow so far as it could follow according to the order of natural causes, with which, so far as concerns Himself, He wills to concur. But at the same time He either permits, or also sometimes wills and intends, monsters or sins of nature, either for the beauty and variety of the universe, or in order to let natural causes perform their motions and courses. And therefore He neither wills to concur in an extraordinary way with a cause impeded by another, nor yet to remove the impeding cause by peculiar care or providence, regularly speaking, although for the common good He sometimes does this, of which the theologians speak more at length, partly In I, dist. 45, partly In II, dist. 37; and St. Thomas, I, q. 22, and q. 105; and Augustine can be read, XVI De Civit., c. 8, and bk. LXXXIII Questions, q. 24.

How brute animals operate for the sake of an end

12. It remains that we say a few things about brute animals, for in them a certain greater participation of final causality appears. First indeed, because they are metaphorically allured by the good fitting to them and known, and so tend to it through an act elicited by themselves and caused by that metaphorical motion; that motion, then, is some real causality, and none other than final. Next, in order to attain that fitting object which they have desired, they desire also certain means known by themselves with so great industry and prudence that they seem plainly both to know their utility for the end and to desire them on account of it. Of which sagacity and industry of animals both the philosophers write much,³ and daily experience makes it sufficiently established to us. Which so moved some philosophers that they thought brutes use reason, although weaker and more imperfect than men. Which opinion is commonly reported from Porphyry, bk. III On Abstinence. It is, however, foreign not only to the doctrine of our faith, but also to all reason and the common sense of men; for the rational power, as Aristotle said, IX Metaph., is able for opposites, for by means of discourse in things to be done it uses now this means, afterwards another; but beasts do not so operate, but always in the same way, which is a sufficient sign that they are led not by reason but by the impulse of nature. Add that, if the souls of brutes were rational, they would also be immortal.

13. It is absurd that brutes truly know or vitally desire nothing.—But others, in order to avoid this drawback, fell into another extreme error, denying that brutes truly know or desire anything by elicited appetite, but are borne only by natural weight, as a stone, or moved and attracted from without, as iron is drawn by the magnet. But this is equally absurd, and against evident experience, indeed also against divine Scripture. Nevertheless, against these two errors one must treat more at length in the science of the soul.

14. Brutes do not formally know the notion of end.—As regards the present, then, it must be said that brutes do not formally know the notion of end or of means, because they cannot compare one with another; hence neither in the end itself do they know the proper notion of fittingness on account of which it is per se lovable, indeed neither do they discern between the object inasmuch as it is fitting per se or for the sake of another, because this whole requires great discretion of reason. In some way, however, they know and apprehend some thing or motion as fitting to themselves, and by natural instinct judge that such object is to be desired, pursued or fled by them.⁴ Which natural instinct is nothing else than a certain act of the phantasy or estimative power flowing from it by natural necessity, the phantasm of such thing being posited; by which act practically (to speak in human manner) the brute judges that this is to be avoided, or pursued, or desired by it, although it cannot discern the notion of fittingness or unfittingness. But this natural judgement being posited, the appetite too naturally follows it.

15. What causality of the end brutes participate.—From which it comes about, first, that the causality of the end is in some way participated by brutes, as the argument made convinces, because that elicited appetition is without doubt caused by the metaphorical objective motion of the fitting good, which cannot be brought back to another genus of causality. Nevertheless it must be added that that causality is so imperfect in that genus that it is rather as it were a material motion of the end than a formal one, as St. Thomas signified, I-II, q. 1, a. 2, and q. 6, a. 2. And the reason is that they do not know the formal notion of fittingness or utility; therefore they are not so moved that they can order one thing to another, nor yet formally desire something as lovable for its own sake; therefore they do not tend formally to the end as end, nor to the means as means, nor to the end for its own sake and to the means for the sake of the end, but, as far as concerns their mode of operating, they tend equally to both, and therefore they are deservedly said to operate materially rather than formally for the sake of an end. Wherefore, as regards formal relation to the end, the same judgement is to be passed of the actions of brutes as of other natural agents. And the same judgement holds of the sensitive appetite of man, if it is considered per se alone and not as it underlies the motion of the will or of reason, of which elsewhere.