The second cause is the Efficient Cause. This asks the question, how was the object made? For the statue, it was made by the mason. However, this cause is not always a person, for example, trees are made from the soil, water and oxygen, not but a human, however, this can be questioned as our universe is an object, but who created that? The big bang? God? This will later be discussed.
The third cause is the Formal Cause. This asks what are the characteristics of the object. In the example of the statue, it is hard, inanimate and looks like a statue. Aristotle believed that, unlike Plato, you had to experience things in order to reason why thing exist. Furthermore, he believed that we distinguish things by their characteristics, then in our minds we sort them into the correct category to which they fit.
The fourth, and most important, cause is the Final Cause. This asks what the purpose of the object is. In the case of the statue, the purpose is to be decorative and resemble another object or person. Aristotle believed that when an object has fully carried out its purpose, it is good. However, how can anything in the empirical world be a perfect representation of its purpose? This is answered by the theory of the prime mover.
Aristotle recognized that everything in this world goes through states of change, but he also believed that this must have been dependent of something as “nothing can come from nothing”. He believed that this led to the Prime Mover. This is thought to be the beginning of the change of reactions that led to the creation of our world and the changes that occur, much like a domino effect. The Prime Mover is sometimes linked to God, as it is thought to be something that never changes and the only actual, unchanging and perfect thing in existence. It is also thought to be eternal, like God, and Aristotle believed that everything eternal must be good as all things that change are bad. However, does this mean that nothing in our world can be good because we change?
To conclude, the Four Causes are a means in which we can work out why a particular thing exists and how. We can define the purpose of something and also relate it back to the theory of the Prime Mover and where the world began.
