FINAL CAUSE • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Final cause

"Final cause" Quotes from Famous Books

... which we perceive. The image seems to prepare the adaptation of the individual to his surroundings; it creates the foresight, the preparation of the means, and, in a word, everything which constitutes for us a final cause. Now, it is very necessary that the image appear real to be usefully the substitute of the sensation past or ...

— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet

... divine development is the unfolding of an intelligent plan, showing the adaptation of means to ends for the accomplishment of a purpose; the atheistic theory of evolution denies plan, purpose, adaptation and final cause. ...

— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson

... its possible action. He could not delude himself into the belief that the oversight of his plantations, and the perfecting his park scenery, could be a worthy end of existence; or that painting and music were meant to be the stamina of life; or even that books were their own final cause. These things had refined and enriched him; they might go on doing so to the end of his days; but ...

— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell

... this ratiocination Mr. Theobald printed the text, a thread of my own life. I have restored the ancient reading. Prospero, in his reason subjoined why he calls her the third of his life, seems to allude to some logical distinction of causes, making her the final cause. ...

— Johnson's Notes to Shakespeare Vol. I Comedies • Samuel Johnson

... been discovered. Subterraneous fire, again, although the most conspicuous in the operations of this world, and often examined by philosophers, is a power which has been still less understood, whether with regard to its efficient or final cause. It has hitherto appeared more like the accident of natural things, than the inherent property of the mineral region. It is in this last light, however, that I wish to exhibit it, as a great power acting a material part in the ...

— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton

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