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Wellsprings
cosmology

Natural Teleology (The Final Cause)

τὸ οὗ ἕνεκα

A spider's web, a swallow's nest, a leaf shading its fruit: for Aristotle, nature builds toward ends, and does nothing in vain.

Aristotle argued that to truly explain a natural thing you must name not only what it is made of and what set it moving, but what it is for. Teeth grow sharp in front for tearing and broad behind for grinding; rain falls and seeds sprout as if aiming at a result. This goal-directedness, he held, is built into nature itself rather than imposed by a designing mind, and it became his central weapon against thinkers who reduced the living world to blind collisions of matter. The slogan that captures it — "nature does nothing in vain" — shaped how the West read the cosmos for two thousand years.

Where this idea shows up

40 Greek sources·3 Jewish-canon citations

Where to read it