Page:Ante-Nicene Christian Library Vol 12.djvu/522

508 are designated from the same and to the same; as the book and scalpel are called surgical, both from the surgeon who uses them, and with reference to the surgical matter itself.

Causes, some are Procatarctic and some Synectic, some Co-operating, some Causes sine quâ non.

Those that afford the occasion of the origin of anything first, are Procatarchic; as beauty is the cause of love to the licentious; for when seen by them, it alone produces the amorous inclination, but not necessarily.

Causes are Synectic (which are also univocally perfect of themselves) whenever a cause is capable of producing the effect of itself, independently.

Now all the causes may be shown in order in the case of the learner. The father is the Procatarctic cause of learning, the teacher the Synectic, and the nature of the learner the Co-operating cause, and time holds the relation of the Cause sine quâ non.

Now that is properly called a cause which is capable of effecting anything actively; since we say that steel is capable of cutting, not merely while cutting, but also while not cutting. Thus, then, the capabihty of causing signifies both; both that wdiich is now acting, and that which is not yet acting, but which possesses the power of acting.

Some, then, say that causes are properties of bodies; and others of incorporeal substances; others say that the body is properly speaking cause, and that what is incorporeal is so only catachrestically, and a quasi-cause. Others, again, reverse matters, saying that corporeal substances are properly causes, and bodies are so improperly; as, for example, that cutting, which is an action, is incorporeal, and is the cause