Source identified1
Image design Midnight
Read & copy
“If the principle of final causes were a first principle, and a priori, like the principle of causality, we would apply it everywhere and in all circumstances; but it is not so.”
Meaning & context
Janet begins by denying that teleological explanation functions as an automatic first principle, making its use something that must itself be examined and justified.
Source details
Final Causes, Book I, Chapter I, “The Principle,” opening sentence, William Affleck translation (1878). The represented public-domain scan prints the sentence on p. 17 after Robert Flint’s prefatory matter. Janet begins by denying that finality functions as an automatic a priori principle like causality; this remains nineteenth-century philosophical teleology rather than current scientific consensus.