efficient cause

American  

noun

Aristotelianism.

1. cause8b

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efficient cause British  

noun

1. philosophy that which produces an effect by a causal process Compare final cause See also cause

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Example Sentences

As far as Aristotle was concerned, as we saw in Chapter 3, causal explanations had four components: the formal cause, the final cause, the material cause and the efficient cause.

From Literature

There is only an efficient cause: the balance of weights; and a structure or form that makes the balance possible: a sealed tube up-ended in a bath of mercury.

From Literature

The discovery of an efficient cause of modifications, which Lamarck refers to the efforts of the creatures themselves, has placed his speculations in the museum of biological curiosities; but sharp controversy rages to-day over the question raised in Lamarck’s fourth proposition, namely, the transmission of characters acquired by the parent during its lifetime to the offspring.

From Project Gutenberg

In the eagerness of theologians to discover proof of a belief in one God among the old philosophers, the references made by Aristotle to a “perfecting principle,” an “efficient cause,” a “prime mover,” and so forth, have been too readily construed as denoting a monotheistic creed which, reminding us of the “one god” of Xenophanes, is also akin to the Personal God of Christianity.

From Project Gutenberg

Yet perhaps the most efficient cause of demoralization in the clergy, and of hostility between them and the laity, was the personal inviolability and the immunity from secular jurisdiction which they succeeded in establishing as a recognized principle of public law.

From Project Gutenberg