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Final cause   /fˈaɪnəl kɑz/   Listen
noun
Cause  n.  
1.
That which produces or effects a result; that from which anything proceeds, and without which it would not exist. "Cause is substance exerting its power into act, to make one thing begin to be."
2.
That which is the occasion of an action or state; ground; reason; motive; as, cause for rejoicing.
3.
Sake; interest; advantage. (Obs.) "I did it not for his cause."
4.
(Law) A suit or action in court; any legal process by which a party endeavors to obtain his claim, or what he regards as his right; case; ground of action.
5.
Any subject of discussion or debate; matter; question; affair in general. "What counsel give you in this weighty cause!"
6.
The side of a question, which is espoused, advocated, and upheld by a person or party; a principle which is advocated; that which a person or party seeks to attain. "God befriend us, as our cause is just." "The part they take against me is from zeal to the cause."
Efficient cause, the agent or force that produces a change or result.
Final cause, the end, design, or object, for which anything is done.
Formal cause, the elements of a conception which make the conception or the thing conceived to be what it is; or the idea viewed as a formative principle and cooperating with the matter.
Material cause, that of which anything is made.
Proximate cause. See under Proximate.
To make common cause with, to join with in purposes and aims.
Synonyms: Origin; source; mainspring; motive; reason; incitement; inducement; purpose; object; suit; action.



adjective
Final  adj.  
1.
Pertaining to the end or conclusion; last; terminating; ultimate; as, the final day of a school term. "Yet despair not of his final pardon."
2.
Conclusive; decisive; as, a final judgment; the battle of Waterloo brought the contest to a final issue.
3.
Respecting an end or object to be gained; respecting the purpose or ultimate end in view.
Final cause. See under Cause.
Synonyms: Final, Conclusive, Ultimate. Final is now appropriated to that which brings with it an end; as, a final adjustment; the final judgment, etc. Conclusive implies the closing of all discussion, negotiation, etc.; as, a conclusive argument or fact; a conclusive arrangement. In using ultimate, we have always reference to something earlier or proceeding; as when we say, a temporary reverse may lead to an ultimate triumph. The statements which a man finally makes at the close of a negotiation are usually conclusive as to his ultimate intentions and designs.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Final cause" Quotes from Famous Books



... natural deep and practical piety of Socrates reinforcing itself with a very full and complete statement of a teleological argument, based upon final cause, or adaptation of means to ends. It is in the Memorabilia[6] that we get the clear statement of this, and, therefore, it is a Socratic teaching which can, fortunately, be definitely distinguished from the Platonic treatment of the subject. "But which," he asks, "seemed to you most worthy of ...
— The Basis of Early Christian Theism • Lawrence Thomas Cole

... also opposed. It was the final cause which led to the retirement from the government of Mr. Chamberlain, "the able and enterprising exponent of the new Radicalism." He was soon followed by Sir George Trevelyan, "who combined the most dignified traditions, social and literary, of the Whig party ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook

... then satisfied, and the science of history ends. But the heart still craves a further investigation. It demands to view the moral and theological aspects of the subject, to harmonize faith and discovery, or at least to introduce the question of human responsibility, and reverently to search for the final cause which the events subserve in the moral purposes of providence. The drama of history must not develope itself without the chorus to interpret its purpose. The artistic,—the scientific,—the ethical,—these are the three ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar

... not antecedently exist, it is not the less true that the law which in the present time of imperfection connects suffering with sin, tends in its operation towards bringing on eventually a state of perfection. Thus there is a final cause for that law. I have already (page 14) illustrated this doctrine by reference to the process whereby the actual condition and adornment of this earth were elaborated by the operation of physical laws out of a state of darkness and chaos. This view is corroborated by the ...
— An Essay on the Scriptural Doctrine of Immortality • James Challis

... war. General Jackson was only partly right when he said, that while in his day the tariff was made the pretext of secession, and that by and by slavery would take its place, but that neither would be the true motive of disunion; that a desire for a separate confederacy was the final cause. This was evidently correct, yet had slavery not stood in this country there would not have come into being that peculiar state of society which now lives in the Southern States, and which demands for its very existence ...
— The Future of the Colored Race in America • William Aikman

... have proceeded thither. Finally, the words in the original as to the King refusing Benedetti "somewhat sternly" were omitted, and very properly omitted, by Bismarck in his abbreviated version. Had he included those words, he might have claimed to be the final cause of the War of 1870. As it is, his claim must be set aside as the offspring of senile vanity. His version of the original Ems despatch did not contain a single offensive word, neither did it alter any statement. Abeken also admitted that his original telegram was far too long, and ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose

... of the spiritual world, and—since this is the substantial world, while the physical remains subordinate to it, or, in the language of speculation, has no truth as against the spiritual—the final cause of the world at large we allege to be the consciousness of its own freedom on the part of Spirit, and, ipso facto, the reality of that freedom. But that this term "freedom" is, without further qualification, an indefinite, incalculable, ambiguous term, and that, while what ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VII. • Various



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