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. Now in the works of nature the good end
and the final cause is still more dominant than in works of art such
as these, nor is necessity a factor with the same significance in them
all; though almost all writers, while they try to refer their origin
to this cause, do so without distinguishing the various senses in
which the term necessity is used. For there is absolute necessity,
manifested in eternal phenomena; and there is hypothetical
necessity, manifested in everything that is generated by nature as
in everything that is produced by art, be it a house or what it may.
For if a house or other such final object is to be realized, it is
necessary that such and such material shall exist; and it is necessary
that first this then that shall be produced, and first this and then
that set in motion, and so on in continuous succession, until the
end and final result is reached, for the sake of which each prior
thing is produced and exists. As with these productions of art, so
also is it with the productions of nature. The mode of necessity,
however, and the mode of ratiocination are different in natural
science from what they are in the theoretical sciences; of which we
have spoken elsewhere. For in the latter the starting-point is that
which is; in the former that which is to be. For it is that which is
yet to be-health, let us say, or a man-that, owing to its being of
such and such characters, necessitates the pre-existence or previous
production of this and that antecedent; and not this or that
antecedent which, because it exists or has been generated, makes it
necessary that health or a man is in, or shall come into, existence
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