ause, material cause, efficient cause, and final cause. Formal and material causes are self explanatory, in that it is the form or the matter of the substance that is responsible for the change within the substance. Efficient and final cause, however, will become clearer once we investigate Aristotles ideas of actuality and potentiality. We should begin the explanation of actuality and potentially by saying that form can be seen as the actuality of the substance while matter is the potential for that form to exist. The best way to illustrate this is through the analogy of the building of a house. The materials, bricks and wood, should be seen as the matter, the potentially to become a house. The end-result, the house, is the form, it is the potential made actual. The building of the house itself, the movement, is analogous to the four types of causes Aristotle says exist in substances. In the case of this analogy the builder would be the efficient cause in that it is he/she who initiates the change. One could also say that there is a final or teleological cause taking place as well, that the motive is to build a house which serves the purpose of house-ness, namely that the house is one in which people can live. Through this analogy one can begin to see the nature of each of the causes which can exist within a given substance. Once we see how Aristotles ideas of actuality and potentially relate to his ideas of form and matter (matter is potentiality, form is its actuality), which necessarily relate to substance, we can almost begin the analysis of his philosophy on an ethical system. First, however, an introduction to the idea of the Unmoved Mover is necessary. In accordance with Aristotles teleological view of the natural world, the Unmoved Mover is a purely actual thing which motivates all things toward the good. All things try to achieve completeness, full actuality, or perfection; this implies that there must exist an object or state...
