The Lagoon: How Aristotle Invented Science

by Armand Marie Leroi

The efficient (or moving) cause is an account of the mechanics of movement and change. It is now the domain of developmental biology and neurophysiology. The material cause is an account of the matter – the stuff – of which animals are made, and their properties. It is now the domain of modern biochemistry and physiology. The formal cause is an account of the information transmitted that any creature received from its parents, and that is responsible for the features that it shares with other members of its species – that is, the subject matter of genetics. The final cause is teleology, the analysis of the parts of animals in terms of their functions. It is now the part of evolutionary biology that studies adaptation. To the degree that function moulds the stuff of which animals are made, the way they develop, how they maintain themselves in the face of the world’s vicissitudes, and how they reproduce and die, the final cause embraces, as Aristotle says, the other three. He gives us the structure of our thought even when we do not know it.