Adapting the Deweyan concept of learning as a spur to personal [End Page 530] development, Mearns saw writing "as the efficient cause of an education in which the final cause was personal growth" (pp. 104 11).
I do not anticipate the lack of a Scotsman in the final causing significant diminution in my snack or alcohol consumption and, what the hell, I may even make myself a toasted-ham-and-cheese sandwich later on, so that might be something else for the experts to consider.
In accurately identifying the final cause of death or most clinically significant abnormality, post-mortem MR imaging had a sensitivity and specificity of 69%95%5% CI 56%, 80 % and 95%95%5% CI 88%, 98%) in fetuses, and 28%95%CI 13%13%, 47%) and 64%95%CI 23%23%, 94%) in children and adults, respectively; however the published data is limited to small, heterogenous and poorly designed studies.
In all these patients the final cause of death was multiorgan failure, originating from graft dysfunction in four, graft dysfunction associated with renal insufficiency in two, liver and renal dysfunction associated with biliary tract complications in one.
Ammonius also makes God the (efficient) cause of all things, in addition to being the final cause (see below, sect. 3.2).
Pneumonia mortality may be more susceptible to 'harvesting' as pneumonia is prevalent in the elderly [ 9, 49] and is often the final cause in the chain of causes leading to death, implying a high incidence in the frail sub-population compared to the general population.
It is precisely this set of ideas that lies at the heart of Averroes' conception of divine providence ('ināya Allāh) as the well-ordered functioning of species (and of individuals under their species) as a result of God's functioning as the final cause in this way.
In this case, X13 is the final cause.
In so speaking, he is not just saying in a colorful way that perhaps the final cause does not exist, but rather that it is perhaps a mere fictum, that possibly all of our appeals to final causation are merely convenient fictions, able in principle to be replaced by appeals to other kinds of cause, those with real being, like efficient causes.
While climate change definitely played a significant role in their extinction, recent studies suggest that humans may have also been a driving force in their demise, or at least the final cause.
