efficient cause

== English == === Noun === efficient cause (plural efficient causes) (philosophy, natural science) The being or event which physically brings about the change or motion that produces another occurrence or thing. 1781, Samuel Johnson, quoting Sir Richard Blackmore in Lives of the Poets: As to its efficient cause, wit owes its production to an extraordinary and peculiar temperament in the constitution of the possessor of it, in which is found a concurrence of regular and exalted ferments, and an affluence of animal spirits, refined and rectified to a great degree of purity. ==== Usage notes ==== One of the four kinds of causes recognized in Aristotelianism: material cause, formal cause, efficient cause, final cause. === References === “efficient cause”, in OneLook Dictionary Search.