according to Aristotle, there are four kinds of cause (or explanation), namely material, formal, efficient, and final. These English terms are drawn not from Greek, but from Latin translations of Aristotle’s Greek. For instance, “efficient” relates to the Latin verb efficio, which means “do” or “bring about.” Thus, the efficient cause is the one that brings something about—for instance, the carpenter who builds a table is the efficient cause of the table.
