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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: BOOK FIRST. THE LAW OF FINALITY. chapter{{Section 4CHAPTER I. THE PRINCIPLE. TF the principle of final causes were a first principle, and -- d, priori, like the principle of causality, we would apply it everywhere and in all circumstances; but it is not so. In a very great number of cases phenomena appear to us to be without an end, or at least do not call forth the notion of an end; in other cases, again, this notion is produced with an imperious and irresistible force. Whence comes this difference ? In what does the second case differ from the first ? By what do we recognise that certain phenomena have, or appear to have, an end ? Who' warrants us to qualify them in this manner ? To reply to this question will be to demonstrate the principle of finality. It is a law of our mind, into the origin and metaphysical signification of which we do not inquire, that as often as a phenomenon appears to us in experience, we suppose for it an anterior condition, which we call its cause, or its reason) In whatever manner we understand the cause, ?whether with some we see in it a power to act, or with others a simple phenomenon which precedes another, ?in both cases, in all cases, it is an invincible law of the human mind to affirm that a phenomenon which appears in time supposes something without which it would not have existed. All the phenomena of nature, then, are linked by the bond of cause and effect. However, we are not to believe that all these phenomena form a single indefinite chain, in which each phenomenon 1 The distinction baa been made, and should be made, between the cause and rtagon of a phenomenon (see A. Fouillee, Philosophy of Plato, t. ii. p. 469); but this distinction ia useless here. It suffices us to understand the idea of cause as it is understood i...
| ISBN-13 | 9780217475846 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10 | 0217475841 |
| Weight | 1.25 Pounds |
| Dimensions | 9.00 x 6.00 x 0.86 In |
| List Price | $26.44 |
| Format | Paperback |
|---|---|
| Pages | 386 pages |
| Publisher | |
| Published On | 2009-08-01 |
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