A Disquisition About the Final Causes of Natural Things

Robert Boyle — EEBO-TCP A77179, keyed from the 1688 edition.

Whether, and with what caution, a naturalist may argue from the use of a thing to the end it was made for. Boyle is answering Descartes, who had ruled final causes out of physics as presumption about the mind of God, and the Epicureans, who ruled them out altogether; his own position is that the eye is for seeing, that this is a discovery and not a piety, and that it is the naturalist rather than anyone else who is in a position to say so.

Up: Robert Boyle

Contents (12)

1. The Preface
2. An Essay Inquiring Whether and How a Naturalist Should Consider Final Causes
3. Section 1
4. Section 2
5. Section 3
6. Section 4
7. Proposition 1
8. Proposition 2
9. Proposition 3
10. Proposition 4
11. Proposition 5
12. The Conclusion