_There is but one first, and four second causes in all things._] In that he saith there is but one first cause, he speaketh in opposition to the _Manichees_, who held there were _Duo principia_; one from whom came all good, and the other from whom came all evil: the reason of _Protagoras_ did it seems impose upon their understandings; he was wont to say, _Si Deus non est, unde igitur bona? Si autem est, unde mala?_ In that he saith there are but four second Causes, he opposeth _Plato_, who to the four causes, _material_, _efficient_, _formal_, and _final_, adds for a fifth _exemplar_ or _Idæa_, sc. _Id ad quod respiciens artifex, id quod destinabat efficit_; according to whose mind _Boetius_ speaks, _lib. 3. met. 9. de cons. Philosoph_. _O qui perpetua mundum ratione gubernas, Terrarum Cœliq; sator qui tempus ab ævo Ire jubes, stabilisq; manens das cuncta moveri: Quem non externæ pepulerunt fingere causæ Materiæ fluitantis opus, verum insita summi Forma boni livore carens: tu cuncta superno Ducis ab exemplo, pulchrum pulcherrimus ipse Mundum mente gerens, similique in imagine formans, Perfectasq; jubens perfectum absolvere partes._ And St. _Augustine l. 83. quest. 46_. where (amongst other) he hath these words, _Restat ergo ut omnia Ratione sint condita, nec eadem ratione homo qua equus; hoc enim absurdum est existimare: singula autem propriis sunt creata rationibus_. But these _ideæ Plato's_ Scholar _Aristotle_ would not allow to make or constitute a different sort of cause from the _formal_ or _efficient_, to which purpose he disputes, _l. 7. Metaphysic._ but he and his Sectators, and the _Ramists_ also, agree (as the Author) that there are but the four remembred Causes: so that the Author, in affirming there are but four, hath no Adversary but the _Platonists_; but yet in asserting there are four (as his words imply) there are that oppose him, and the _Schools_ of _Aristot._ and _Ramus_. I shall bring for instance Mr. _Nat Carpenter_, who in his _Philosophia Libera_ affirmeth, there is no such cause as that which they call the _Final cause_: he argueth thus; Every cause hath an influence upon its effect: but so has not the End, therefore it is not a Cause. The _major_ proposition (he saith) is evident, because the influence of a cause upon its effect, is either the causality it self, or something that is necessarily conjoyned to it: and the _minor_ as plain, for either the End hath an influence upon the effect immediately, or mediately, by stirring up the Efficient to operate; not immediately, because so it should enter either the _constitution_ or _production_, or _conservation_ of the things; but the constitution it cannot enter, because the constitution is only of _matter_ and _form_; nor the Production, for so it should concur to the production, either as it is _simply the end_, or as _an exciter of the Efficient_; but not simply as