Kitap 5
3
It is a common property, then, of all beginnings to be the first thing from which something either exists or comes into being or becomes known; and some beginnings are originally inherent in things, while others are not. Hence nature is a beginning, and so is element and understanding and choice and essence and final cause—for in many cases the Good and the Beautiful are the beginning both of knowledge and of motion.
1
Cause means: (a) in one sense, that as the result of whose presence something comes into being—e.g. the bronze of a statue and the silver of a cup, and the classessc. of material—metal, wood, etc. which contain these; (b) in another sense, the form or pattern; that is, the essential formula and the classes which contain it—e.g. the ratio 2:1 and number in general is the cause of the octave—and the parts of the formula.
2
(c) The source of the first beginning of change or rest; e.g. the man who plans is a cause, and the father is the cause of the child, and in general that which produces is the cause of that which is produced, and that which changes of that which is changed. (d) The same as end; i.e. the final cause; e.g., as the end of walking is health.
3
For why does a man walk? To be healthy, we say, and by saying this we consider that we have supplied the cause. (e) All those means towards the end which arise at the instigation of something else, as, e.g. fat-reducing, purging, drugs and instruments are causes of health; for they all have the end as their object, although they differ from each other as being some instruments, others actions.
