efficient cause

English

Noun

efficient cause (plural efficient causes)

1. (philosophy, natural science) The being or event which physically brings about the change or motion that produces another occurrence or thing.
   • 1781, Samuel Johnson, quoting Sir Richard Blackmore in Lives of the Poets:

     As to its efficient cause, wit owes its production to an extraordinary and peculiar temperament in the constitution of the possessor of it, in which is found a concurrence of regular and exalted ferments, and an affluence of animal spirits, refined and rectified to a great degree of purity.

   • 1859, Charles Darwin, chapter 7, in The Origin of Species:

     There must be some efficient cause for each slight individual difference, as well as for more strongly marked variations which occasionally arise.

   • 1895, Henry James, chapter 6, in The Altar of the Dead:

     [H]e turned the corner where for years he had always paused; simply not to pause was an efficient cause for emotion.

   • 1998, R. J. Schork, Greek and Hellenic Culture in Joyce, →ISBN, page 176:

     In the production of a statue of Athena for the Parthenon, the bronze is the material cause; the shape and design of the statue is the formal cause; the sculptor is the efficient cause; the honor of the goddess (and the glory of Athens) is the final cause.

Usage notes

• One of the four kinds of causes recognized in Aristotelianism: material cause, formal cause, efficient cause, final cause.

References

• “efficient cause”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.