the tree: first there is the seed, and as a result, the tree grows. But from the perspective of final causation, Aristotle said, the future tree determines the nature of the seed and of the development it has to follow in order to end up as that tree.
This, by the way, is one of my major differences from Aristotle. It is wrong to assume what in philosophy is known as teleology—namely, that a purpose set in advance in nature determines physical phenomena. The concept of the future tree determining the nature of the seed is impossible; it is the kind of concept that leads to mysticism and religion. Most religions have a teleological explanation of the universe: God made the universe, so His purpose determined the nature of the entities in it.
But the concept of final causation, properly delimited, is valid. Final causation applies only to the work of a conscious entity—specifically of a rational one—because only a thinking consciousness can choose a purpose ahead of its existence and then select the means to achieve it.
In the realm of human action, everything has to be directed by final causation. If men allow themselves to be moved by efficient causation—if they act like determined beings, propelled by some immediate cause outside themselves—that is totally improper. (Even then, volition is involved: if a man decides to abandon purpose, that is also a choice, and a bad one.) Proper human action is action by means of final causation.
An obvious example here pertains to writing. As a writer, you must follow the process of final causation: you decide on the theme of your book (your purpose), then select the events and the sentences that will concretize your theme. The reader, by contrast, follows the process of efficient causation: he goes step by step through your book being moved toward the abstraction you intended.
Any purposeful activity follows the same progression. To make an automobile, a man first has to decide what kind of object he is making—an automobile—and then select the elements which, put together, will constitute that automobile. By the process of final causation, he makes nature perform the necessary processes of efficient causation; he puts together certain parts in a certain scientific order to achieve a vehicle which moves.
In nature, there is no final causation; but in man’s action, final causation is the only proper guide.
Observe how this applies to the issue of plot stories versus plotless ones. In a plot story, men and events are pulled forward by a purpose. In a Naturalistic, plotless story, they are pushed from behind, as in physical nature.
Take the novels of Sinclair Lewis again. They are not totally formless: they begin somewhere and end somewhere. But the characters rarely pursue any particular goals. They go through certain events, drawing some conclusions, growing or deteriorating mentally, in a haphazard interaction between themselves and their social background. Their actions do proceed from their characters as the author sees them, but the protagonists do not determine the course of their lives.
There is a fundamental contradiction in the premise of the Naturalistic school. You are interested in reading a Naturalistic story such as Anna Karenina only because of the implied assumption that the characters have choice. If a woman hesitates between leaving her husband for the man she loves and giving up the man she loves for her husband, this is a crucial choice in her life. It can interest you only if you assume she has choice about it and you want to know why she decides the way she does and whether she is right or wrong. If, however, you hold firmly in mind the idea that she cannot choose but has to do whatever fate determines—and that, should you ever be in a comparable situation, your future action is unknowable to you because something other than your choice will determine your decision—the story will have no meaning for you whatever.
If men have no choice, you cannot write a story about them, nor is there any sense in reading one. If they do have choice, there is no sense in reading about unchosen events. What you rationally want to read is a story about men’s choices, right or wrong—about their decisions and what they should have decided—which means: a free-will, Romantic plot story.
Now let us consider in more detail the issue of plot.
If a man is not a determined being but sets his own purpose, then it is he who has to achieve that purpose and devise the