Part 20 (2/2)
We may, then, define efficient cause as _the extrinsic principle of the change or production of anything by means of action_: _principium extrinsic.u.m a quo fluit motus vel productio rei mediante actione_.
It is a ”first” principle as compared with material and formal causes for its influence is obviously prior in nature to theirs; also as compared with the other extrinsic cause, the final cause, _in ordine executionis_, not, however, _in ordine intentionis_. The ”end,” not as realized but as realizable, not in execution but in intention, discharges its function and exerts its influence as ”final _cause_” and in this order the final cause, as will appear later, is _the first of all causes_: _finis est ultimus in executione sed primus in intentione_.
”Change or production,” in the definition, is to be understood not in the strict sense in which it presupposes an existing subject or material, but in the wide sense in which it includes any production of new reality, even creation or production _ex nihilo_.
”Action,” too, is to be understood in the wide sense in which it includes the action of the First Cause, which action is really identical with the essence of the latter. We conceive creation after the a.n.a.logy of the efficient action of created or ”second” causes: we have no _proper_ concept of the infinite perfection of the Divine activity. In all created efficient causes not only is the action itself, but also the efficiency, force, power, faculty, which is its _proximate_ principle, really distinct from the nature or essence of the agent; the former is a substance, the latter an accident.
Finally, the action of a created efficient cause is either transitive (_transiens_) or immanent (_immanens_) according as the change wrought by the action takes place in something else (as when _the sun_ heats or lights _the earth_) or in the cause itself (as when a man reasons or wills). In the former case the action perfects not the agent but the other thing, the _patiens_; in the latter case it perfects the agent itself, _agens_ and _patiens_ being here the same identical concrete individual.(452)
98. SOME SCHOLIA ON CAUSATION. THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSALITY.-Before enumerating the princ.i.p.al kinds of efficient cause, and a.n.a.lysing the nature of efficient causality, we may set down here certain self-evident axioms and aphorisms concerning causation in general. (_a_) The most important of these is the _Principle of Causality_, which has been enunciated in a variety of ways: _Whatever happens has a cause_; _Whatever begins to be has a cause_; _Whatever is contingent has a cause_; _Nothing occurs without a cause_. Not everything that begins to be has necessarily a _material_ cause, or a _formal_ cause, really distinct from itself. For instance, simple spiritual beings, like the human soul, have no material cause, nor any formal cause or const.i.tutive principle distinct from their essence. Similarly, the whole universe, having been created _ex nihilo_, had no pre-existing material cause. All the material beings, however, which are produced, generated, brought into actual existence in the course of the incessant changes which characterize the physical universe, have both material and formal causes. But the Principle of Causality refers mainly to extrinsic causes. It is commonly understood only of efficient causes; and only in regard to these is it self-evident. We shall see that as a matter of fact nothing happens without a _final_ cause: that intelligent purpose pervades reality through and through. This, however, is a conclusion, not a principle. What is really a self-evident, axiomatic, necessary principle is that _whatever happens has an_ EFFICIENT _cause_. Only the Necessary, Self-Existing, Eternal Being, has the sufficient reason of His actual existence in Himself, in His own essence.
That any being which is contingent could exist _independently of some other actual being_ as the cause of this existence; that it could have come into existence or begun to exist _from absolute nothingness, or be produced or brought into actual existence without any actual being to produce it_; or that, once existing and subject to change, it could undergo change and have its potentialities actualized _without any actual being to cause such change_ (10)-all this is positively unthinkable and absolutely repugnant to our intelligence; all this our reason peremptorily declares to be intrinsically impossible. Nor is there question of a mere psychological inconceivability, such as might be due to a long-continued custom of a.s.sociating the idea of a ”beginning” with the idea of a ”cause”
of this beginning-as phenomenists generally contend.(453) There is question of an impossibility which our reason categorically dictates to be a real, ontological impossibility. The Principle of Causality is therefore a necessary, _a priori_, self-evident principle.
(_b_) _Every effect must have an adequate efficient cause_, _i.e._ a cause sufficiently perfect, sufficiently high on the scale of being, to have the active power to produce the effect in question; otherwise the effect would be partially uncaused, which is impossible.
(_c_) _An effect cannot as such be actually more perfect than its adequate (created) cause_. The reason is that the effect as such is really dependent for its actuality on its adequate created cause. It derives its actuality from the latter. Now it is inconceivable that an agent could be the active, productive principle of a greater perfection, a higher grade of actuality, than itself possesses. Whatever be the nature of efficient causality, _actio_ and _pa.s.sio_ (102), or of the dependence of the produced actuality upon the active power of its adequate efficient cause (10), the reality of this dependence forbids us to think that in the natural order of efficient causation a higher grade of reality can be actualized than the agent is capable of actualizing, or that the agent can naturally actualize a higher or more perfect grade of reality than is actually its own. We must, however, bear in mind that there is question of the _adequate_ created cause of an effect; and that to account _fully_ for the actualization of any potential reality whatsoever we are forced to recognize in all causation of created efficient causes the _concursus_ of the _First Cause_.
(_d_) The actuality of the effect is in its adequate created cause or causes, _not actually and formally, but potentially_ or _virtually_. If the cause produce an effect of the same kind as itself (_causa ____univoca___), as when living organisms propagate their species, the perfection of the effect is said to be in the cause _equivalently_ (_aequivalenter_); if it produce an effect of a different kind from itself (_causa ____a.n.a.loga___), as when a sculptor makes a statue, the perfection of the effect is said to be in the cause _eminently_ (_eminenter_).
(_e_) _Omne agens agit inquantum est in actu._ The operative power of a being is in proportion to its own actual perfection: the higher an agent is on the scale of reality, or in other words the more perfect its grade of being, the higher and more perfect will be the effects achieved by the exercise of its operative powers. In fact our chief test of the perfection of any nature is a.n.a.lysis of its operations. Hence the maxim so often referred to already:-
(_f_) _Operari sequitur esse; qualis est operatio talis est natura; modus operandi sequitur modum essendi._ Operation is the key to nature; we know what any thing is by what it does.
(_g_) _Nihil agit ultra suam speciem_; or, again, _Omne agens agit simile sibi_. These are inductive generalizations gathered from experience, and have reference to the natural operation of agents, especially in the organic world. Living organisms reproduce only their own kind. Moreover, every agency in the universe has operative powers of a definite kind; acting according to its nature it produces certain effects and these only; others it cannot produce: this is, in the natural order of things, and with the natural _concursus_ of the First Cause. But created causes have a pa.s.sive _obediential capacity_ (_potentia obedientialis_) whereby their nature can be so elevated by the First Cause that they can produce, with His special, supernatural _concursus_, effects of an entirely higher order than those within the ambit of their natural powers.(454)
(_h_) From a known effect, of whatsoever kind, we can argue with certainty, _a posteriori_, to the _existence_ of an adequate efficient cause, and to _some knowledge_ of the _nature_ of such a cause.(455) By virtue of the principle of causality we can infer the existence of an adequate cause containing either equivalently or eminently all the perfections of the effect in question.
99. CLa.s.sIFICATION OF EFFICIENT CAUSES.-(_a_) We have already referred to the distinction between the _First_ Cause and _Second_ or _Created_ Causes. The former is absolutely independent of all other beings both as to His power and as to the exercise of this power. The latter are dependent, for both, upon the former.
The distinction between a first, or primary, or independent cause, and second, or subordinate, or dependent causes can be understood not only of causes universally, but also as obtaining among created causes themselves.
In general the _subordination_ of a cause to a superior or anterior cause may be either _essential_ or _accidental_: essential, when the second cause depends-either for its existence or for an indispensable complement of its efficiency-on the _present_ actual influence of the other cause; accidental when the second cause has indeed received its existence or efficiency from this other cause, but is now no longer dependent, for its existence or action, on the latter. Thus, living organisms are, as causes, accidentally subordinate to their parent organisms: they derived their existence from the latter, but are independent of these when in their maturity they continue to exist, and live, and act of themselves and for themselves. But all creatures, on the other hand, are, as causes, _essentially_ subordinate to the Creator, inasmuch as they can exist and act only in constant dependence on the ever present and ever actual conserving and concurring influence of the Creator.
It is obvious that all the members of any series of causes _essentially_ subordinate the one to the other _must exist simultaneously_. Whether such a series could be infinite depends, therefore, on the question whether an _actually infinite mult.i.tude_ is intrinsically possible. This difficulty cannot be urged with such force against an infinite regress in causes _accidentally_ subordinate to one another; for here such a regress would not involve an actually infinite mult.i.tude of things existing simultaneously. In the case of essentially subordinate causes, moreover, the series, whatever about its infinity, must contain, or rather imply _above_ it, _one_ cause which is _first_ in the sense of being _independent_, or exempt from the subordination characteristic of all the others. And the reason is obvious: Since no one of them can exist or act except dependently on another, and this on another, and so on, it is manifest that the series cannot exist at all unless there is some one cause which, unlike all the others, exists and acts without such subordination or dependence. Hence, _in essentially subordinate causes an infinite regress is impossible_.(456) In Natural Theology these considerations are of supreme importance.
(_b_) An efficient cause may be described as _immanent_ or _transitive_ according as the term of its action remains within the cause itself, or is produced in something else. The action of the First Cause is formally immanent, being identical with the Divine Nature itself; it is virtually transitive when it is creative, or operative among creatures.
(_c_) An efficient cause is either a _princ.i.p.al_ or an _instrumental_ cause. When two causes so combine to produce an effect that one of them uses the other the former is called the princ.i.p.al and the latter the instrumental cause. Thus I am the princ.i.p.al cause of the words I am writing; my pen is the instrumental cause of them. Such an effect is always attributed to the princ.i.p.al cause, not to the instrumental. The notion of an instrument is quite a familiar notion. An instrument helps the princ.i.p.al agent to do what the latter could not otherwise do, or at least not so easily. An instrument therefore is really a cause. It contributes positively to the production of the effect. How does it do so?
By reason of its nature or structure it influences, modifies, and directs in a particular way, the efficiency of the princ.i.p.al cause. But this property of the instrumental cause comes into play only when the latter is being actually used by a princ.i.p.al cause. A pen, a saw, a hammer, a spade, have each its own instrumentality. The pen will not cut, nor the saw mould iron, nor the hammer dig, nor the spade write, for the agent that uses them. Each will produce its own kind of effect when used; but none of them will produce any effect except when used: though each has in itself permanently and inherently the power to produce its own proper effect in use.(457) We have instanced the use of _artificial_ instruments. But nature itself provides some agencies with what may be called _natural_ instruments. The _s.e.m.e.n_ whereby living organisms propagate their kind is an instance. In a less proper sense the various members of the body are called instruments of the human person as princ.i.p.al cause, ”instrumenta _conjuncta_”.
The notion of an instrumental cause involves then (_a_) subordination of the latter, in its instrumental activity, to a princ.i.p.al cause, (_b_) incapacity to produce the effect otherwise than by modifying and directing the influence of the princ.i.p.al cause. This property whereby the instrumental cause modifies or determines in a particular way the influence of the princ.i.p.al cause, is called by St. Thomas an _actio_ or _operatio_ of the former; the distinction between the princ.i.p.al and the instrumental cause being that whereas the former acts by virtue of a power permanently inherent in it as a natural perfection, the latter acts as an instrument only by virtue of the transient motion which it derives from the princ.i.p.al cause which utilizes it.(458)
We may, therefore, define an _instrumental_ cause as _one which, when acting as an instrument, produces the effect not by virtue of its inherent power alone, but by virtue of a power communicated to it by some princ.i.p.al cause which acts through it_. A _princ.i.p.al_ cause, on the other hand, is _one which produces its effect by virtue of an active power permanently inherent in itself_.
The designations _princ.i.p.al_ and _instrumental_ are obviously correlative.
Moreover, _all created_ causes may be called _instrumental_ in relation to the _First Cause_. For, not only are they dependent on the latter for the _conservation_ of their nature and active powers; they are also dependent, in their action, in their actual exercise of these powers, on the First Cause (for the _concursus_ of the latter).(459) Yet some created causes have these powers permanently, and can exercise them without subordination to other creatures; while others need, for the exercise of their proper functions, not only the Divine _concursus_, but also the motion of other creatures. Hence the former are rightly called _princ.i.p.al_ created causes, and the latter _instrumental_ created causes.
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