I. Of Causes in General.
HE who spoke first, said, That the word Cause must not be confounded with that of Reason, though it seemes so in our manner of Speech; because an Effect serves sometime for a Reason to prove its Cause. As when I am ask'd the reason by which I know that Fire is Light; I Answer, By its ascending upwards; which is the Effect of Fire, and the proof but not the Cause of its lightness. Cause also differs from Principle, because every Cause is real, and imparts a being different from its own; which Pri∣vation (being a Principle) hath not: And so every Cause is a Principle, but every Principle is not a Cause. Now a Cause is That which produceth an Effect. There are Four; Matter, Form, the Agent, and its End. Which Number is not drawn from any real distinction between them; Seeing many times one and the same Thing is Form, Agent, and End, in several respects. So the Rational Soul is the Form of Man, the Efficient Cause of his Ratiocination, and the next End of the Creation. But it is drawn from the four wayes of being a Cause, which are call'd Causalities; whereof one susteineth the Forms, to wit, the Matter, An Other informeth that Matter, and is the Form; A Third produceth that Form, and uniteth it to the Matter, and is the Agent, or Efficient Cause; The Fourth by its goodness exciteth the Agent to act, and is the Final Cause.
The Second said, That the Causes are handled diversly, ac∣cording to the diversity of Sciences. The Logician speaks of them so far as he draws from them his Demonstrations, Definitions, and Probable Arguments: The Natural Philosopher, inasmuch as they are the Principles of all kind of Alterations hapning in na∣tural bodies: The Metaphysitian, as Cause is a Species of Entity, which is generally divided into Cause and Effect: In which consi∣deration Supernatural Things have also some Causes, but not all. Wherefore, in my Judgement, said he, Cause taken in general cannot be divided into the Four Species above men∣tion'd; because Spirits have no Material Cause: but it ought to be first divided, in reference to Immaterial things, into Efficient and Final; and into the four abovesaid, in respect of Material. That Efficient Cause is the first principle of Motion and Rest, and is of two sorts; viz. Ʋniversal or Equivocal, and Particular or Ʋnivocal. The former can produce several effects of different Species, whether it depend not on any other, as God, and is then call'd the First Cause; or depend on some other, and is call'd a Second Cause; As the Sun, which together with Man generates