Space, time, mass, movement, force — these things could be known in a way that such metaphysical imponderables as "divine purpose" and "final causes" could not.
Concern with first or final causes (see teleology) was to be excluded from the scientific endeavour as fruitless or hopeless (if not meaningless).
Aquinas's fifth and final way to demonstrate God's existence is an argument from final causes, or ends, in nature (see teleology).
Notice that in this world view, since modern physics doesn't use final causes and physics is the master science, ends or purposes play no role in reality, although talk of such things may be a convenient figure of speech.
During the scientific revolution of the 17th century, however, final causes came to be regarded as unnecessary and useless in scientific explanation; the new mechanistic philosophy had no need for them.
Because the phenomenal world is thus related to the atomic world, there is no need to explain events in terms of purposes, goals, or final causes, as in Scholastic and Aristotelian teleology.
Let's first consider how perceptions operate as final causes.
Mechanism had expelled final causes from science, and consequently threatened faith in God.
Formal and material causes are internal, whereas efficient and final causes are external.
This is no mysterious pull, though, on the part of these final causes.
EHU contains, of course, Hume's copy principle and the attack on final causes.
