"Knowledge of anything implies knowing it from these four points of view, or knowing its four causes. The End or final cause, however, as is natural, rises to an eminence beyond the other conceptions, and though it must always stand opposed to matter, it tends to merge the other two causes into itself. The end of anything, that for the sake of which anything exists, can hardly be separated from the perfection of that thing, from its idea and form; thus the formal cause or definition becomes absorbed into the final cause. (Eth. III. vii. 6)"