Ends and purposes

Use in the book

Part I introduces purpose while insisting on the distinction between Creator and creature (pp. 39-40, I.039.1). The author would rather lose the art than be a mere laboratory worker without sound understanding. The principal end is to contemplate and know God’s works, attain knowledge of their Creator and advance divine praise. Knowledge and worship are therefore related purposes, not interchangeable labels for financial success.

The same paragraph connects the wrong principal purpose with unworthiness and concealment. Those who set another governing end are the people from whom philosophers hide the art. This is an ethical claim about who should possess knowledge, not merely an explanation of why an author wishes to protect proprietary information. It belongs beside the book’s later warnings about greed and pride.²²

The chapter on metal generation recalls the principal purpose before discussing an uncertain natural process (pp. 106-108, II.106.1-II.107.1). Metals are divine wonders worthy of contemplation, yet the exact mode of their generation remains conjectural. A worthy purpose therefore does not excuse turning conjecture into certain knowledge. The author’s purpose and the evidential limits of his account coexist.

The end of the world provides a different but connected use (pp. 231-232, II.231.1). After describing transformed substance and a new heaven and earth, the author says that its end is God’s glory and that it consequently does not lack an end. End here cannot mean only annihilation, since the surrounding argument denies that universal being simply ceases. Purpose completes the account of transformation.

The same passage limits what can be known in mortality from Scripture and knowledge of nature. Final purpose is not presented as a reason to describe every detail of the future. The author’s brief answer combines a claimed natural analogy, theological expectation and a limit of inquiry. Its point is to make perfection intelligible as meaningful transformation rather than pointless survival or sheer abolition.

These uses differ from the rule that every beginning testifies to its end and every end to its beginning (pp. 12-13, I.012.1; p. 165, II.165.1). There end identifies the result relevant to a material beginning and its capacities. The ethical purpose of study, the result of an operation and the glory of God as final purpose can be related without becoming the same question.

Places to read

1. Part I · I.039.1Study’s governing purpose and the unworthy alternative.
2. Part II · II.106.1; II.107.12Contemplation of metals with conjectural limits.
3. Part II · II.231.1The renewed world’s end as divine glory.
4. Part I and Part II · I.012.1; II.165.12A distinct beginning-result relation.

Translation

Finis can be rendered end, with purpose supplied in explanation where the source’s argument requires it. Principal end and principal purpose render the Latin and German pairing at I.039.1 without assuming that principal means the only conceivable subsidiary aim.

At II.231.1 the brief Latin turn plays upon the question of the world’s end. Preserving the purpose sense avoids the false impression that the author suddenly reverses his account and makes divine glory a synonym for annihilation.

Connections

Charity and Secrecy and publication follow the ethical consequences of the principal purpose. World and its end follows the cosmic application. Efficient cause asks what brings an effect about, whereas the present entry asks what it is for; neither question should replace the other.

Cautions

The stated purpose does not independently validate the medicinal or metallic claims. A pious end and an accurate natural account are distinct matters.

Nor does identifying a principal end justify inventing an otherwise unattested complete hierarchy of final causes. The entry follows the purposes actually named in the work.

finis principalis

finis principalis — Attested source form; any normalized headword is editorial. I.039.1; II.106.1.

Haupt-Zweck

Haupt-Zweck — Attested source form; any normalized headword is editorial. I.039.1.

gloria DEI

gloria DEI — Attested source form; any normalized headword is editorial. II.231.1.