The Politically Incorrect Guide to Western Civilization (Politically Incorrect Guides) by Anthony Esolen Read Free Book Online Page A

their embodiment in actual things. But he was not a materialist. Ultimately, the materialist can only talk sensibly about underlying matter, and not about discrete objects, what Aristotle called “substances,” made up of that matter. For Aristotle, the genuinely real are neither the forms shimmering somewhere above or beyond this world, nor the unseen atoms whose combinations make flint or oil, but the things around us: trees, rocks, birds, man. This flatfooted insistence upon seeing the obvious, before we talk of contemplating the good, characterizes Aristotle’s views of individual morality and the State.
     
    Aristotle notices that of all things natural and man-made, we can predicate four “causes,” or characteristics, essential to its being:
     
    The material cause: what it is made of
    The efficient cause: who or what made it
    The formal cause: what kind of thing it is
    The final cause: what it is for, to what end or perfection it inclines 22
    An oak tree is made of wood, its material cause. It has germinated from an acorn produced by the parent tree, its efficient cause. It is an oak tree, with a certain identifiable structure, including shape of limbs and leaves and pattern of growth. It is not simply “something it pleases us to call, for our convenience, an oak tree,” but really that kind of thing and not another. That is its formal cause. And it has found good soil and matured to a grand height, producing acorns of its own. That is its final cause.
     
    What about man? Aristotle knew that some philosophers, like Democritus, reduced man to his constituent atoms, but such reductive materialism evades the question. It identifies the material cause, but that alone cannot describe what the fullness of our experience suggests when we meet the thing called man. The efficient cause we all know, and our public schools seem itchily driven to reveal it these days to little children. The formal cause includes not only the physical shape or structure, but the encoded instructions regulating our growth and development. What about our final cause? What are we for ? In what state do we attain perfection as man?
     
    Again Aristotle reasoned by beginning from experience. For us, an “empiricist” is one who will admit as evidence only what can be quantified or measured, but Aristotle saw that in most cases quantification is beside the point. So with the final cause of man. If we are talking about man, not dog, not maple, not quartz, we must ask what distinguishes him from all other things. If he is no more than certain combinations of carbon and other elements, then his perfection might be simply to exist , to take up space, to be heavy, like a lump of quartz, or a senator. If all he does is grow, he might find his perfection in taking in nutrition and expelling waste, as the oak tree does without moving or sensing, or as the dog does, hunting down its quarry.
     
    But man possesses an intellect. Therefore man’s final cause, his perfected state, must lie in the perfection of that intellect which distinguishes him from all other substances. But we also notice that man pursues many objects because he believes they are good. He wants food, riches, sex, honor. What do these pursuits have to do with his final cause? Again Aristotle begins from experience. Why do I want money? So that I can buy a raccoon coat. Why do I want a raccoon coat? So that I can look debonair on campus. Why do I want to look debonair? So that Suzy will marry me. Why do I want Suzy to marry me? So that I will be happy. Why do I want to be happy?
     
    The last question makes no sense. Happiness has no purpose beyond itself. Many people will say, “I want money, because money will make me happy,” but no one says, “If only I were happier, then I might be rich!”
     
    Happiness is the end we pursue: it is the intended goal of all our action. But our perfection must reside in the perfection of the intellect. Therefore, happiness is the enjoyment of the