HEIDEL. — Ilepl 4>vo-£C09. 101 



the Socratics who seized the import of their labors, and, by introducing 

 the teleological method, reconstituted philosophy. Even in the post- 

 Socratic period teleology, because seen essentially from the pre-Socratie 

 point of view, became, for example among the Stoics, an idle play-thing, 

 being purely external. 84 



The step is short and easy from <f>v<ri<;, regarded as a process eventu- 

 ating in a result, to <£uo-is considered as the author or source of that 

 which so results (II.). The distinction must lie in the degree of em- 

 phasis laid upon the beginning of the process as distinguished from its 

 end, and, by consequence, in the degree of disruption visited upon the 

 process as a whole. Such a separation is the result of analysis, and 

 the relative prominence of the members into which the unitary process 

 falls may reasonably be supposed to indicate the direction of interest 

 of those who used the terms. This is, however, a point extraordinarily 

 difficult to determine in a satisfactory way. It is safe to say that the 

 layman is chiefly interested in </>i'o-i5, the result of the nature-process : 

 he takes it for granted — his not to question why. It must, therefore, 

 occasion no surprise that by far the most numerous uses of <£iW belong 

 to this class (III.). The philosopher, also, must begin with the finished 

 product and from it reason back to its source. In a peculiar way <£ixris 

 in this sense (II.) will occupy his attention ; but it is obvious that the 

 distinction between cause and law must be difficult to draw. Even in 

 the philosophical and scientific literature of our day it is almost im- 

 possible to maintain a sharp distinction between them. We may be 

 inclined to lay this to the charge of the Aristotelian usage ; but this 

 solution would fall short of historical truth. As we shall see, the four- 

 fold causation of Aristotle, united in (£i'o-i?, is rooted in pre-Socratic 

 usage, though Aristotle reinterpreted the pre-Socratic Ao'yo? /xi^ews, or 

 chemical definition, converting it into a Adyos oia-ias as the result of 

 logical definition, and at the same time made explicit the unconscious 

 teleology of the pre-Socratics by recognizing in the logical definition 

 the final cause. 



Touching the beginning of the process, the philosophers were chiefly 

 interested in what Aristotle styled the "material cause" (II. A). 

 There is no reason to doubt that the pre-Socratics used c^'o-i? in this 

 sense. 85 Aristotle speaks of Thales as the founder of the philosophy 



84 From certain points of view modern philosophy, from Kant onwards, may 

 be said to be the attempt to interpret the world in terms of teleology consciously 

 conceived as the method of human thought. At bottom Pragmatism is hardly any- 

 thing more than an effort to do this consistently, leaving no Absolute outside the 

 teleological process. 



85 It is one of the many services of Burnet (see above, n. 3) that he directed 



