Here Aristotle recognizes four types of things that can be given in answer to a why-question:

The material cause: that out of which, e.g., the bronze of a statue.

The formal cause: the form, the account of what-it-is-to-be, e.g., the shape of a
statue.

The efficient cause: the primary source of the change or rest, e.g., the artisan, the art of
bronze-casting the statue, the man who gives advice, the father of the child.

The final cause: the end, that for the sake of which a thing is done, e.g., health is the
end of walking, losing weight, purging, drugs, and surgical tools.

. Introduction

Aristotle was not the first person to engage in a causal investigation of the world around
us. From the very beginning, and independently of Aristotle, the investigation of the
natural world consisted in the search for the relevant causes of a variety of natural
phenomena. In this tradition of investigation, the search for causes was a search for
answers to the question why?

What Is Historical Causation?

"Everything that becomes or changes," Plato said, "must do so owing to
some cause; for nothing can come to be without a cause." Historical
causation is the attempt to trace current and historical events to their root
causes. For example, philosopher Bertrand Russell traced the cause of
industrialization back through the European Renaissance, to the fall of
Constantinople, the invasion of the Turks and finally, to social disintegration
in Central Asia. Historical causation tries to find an explanation for changes
and is often also used to predict events, by forecasting the effects of current
events on future situations. Ideas about historical causation have changed
dramatically over time, but the subject has always been at the center of how
we understand our world.
Ancient Ideas of Historical Causation

Ancient ideas of historical causation were often linked to metaphysical and mythological
ideas about how the world works. The ancient Greeks, for example, believed that fate and
destiny caused events like a leader's rise to power and the outcome of wars. Several
Greek philosophers, including Plato and Aristotle, tried to formulate more systematic

ideas of causation. Aristotle devised a four-part inquiry into the cause of events that
included tracing them back to an original idea in someone's head.

Historic Causation in the Middle Ages

In Christian Europe, many thinkers tried to reconcile philosophers' earlier ideas about
causation with a world view in which all things ultimately had their origin in God. To
Thomas Aquinas, not only did all things have an internal cause created by God, but all
things were simply the fulfillment of God's plan.

Historical Causation in the Age of Reason

With the discovery of the laws of physics and mechanical ideas about the nature of
reality, European ideas about historical causation changed drastically. Newton explicitly
attacks causation as a primary force, stating that "Any movement that happens according
to the first law of motion is an uncaused event." Other thinkers reexamined historical
events in a new light, observing that changing certain variables could have produced
different historical outcomes. Pascal's "Cleopatra's Nose" is one of the most famous
examples of this: He claimed that if the Egyptian queen's nose had been just a little bit
shorter, Mark Anthony would not have found her beautiful enough to forsake his Roman
wife, and the world would be a different place.

Historical Causation in Modern Times

Since the scientific revolution, ideas about historical causation have tended to follow
along the lines of Pascal's thinking, that even the smallest event can dramatically shape
the grand scheme of things. This is apparent in advanced ideas such as the "chaos theory,"
in which even the flapping of the wings of a butterfly can effect circumstances on the
other side of the world -- known as the "butterfly effect." Modern best-selling books like
Jared Diamond's "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed" apply the latest
findings of archaeology and the natural sciences to trace the historical causation of what
is possibly the most important subject on earth: the survival of human civilizations.