g natural phenomena,
which, indeed, are not made with human hands, perfect or
imperfect: for men are wont to form general ideas of things
natural, no less than of things artificial, and such ideas they
hold as types, believing that Nature (who they think does nothing
without an object) has them in view, and has set them as types
before herself. Therefore, when they behold something in Nature,
which does not wholly conform to the preconceived type which they
have formed of the thing in question, they say that Nature has
fallen short or has blundered, and has left her work incomplete.
Thus we see that men are wont to style natural phenomena perfect
or imperfect rather from their own prejudices, than from true
knowledge of what they pronounce upon.

Now we showed in the Appendix to Part I., that Nature does
not work with an end in view. For the eternal and infinite
Being, which we call God or Nature, acts by the same necessity as
that whereby it exists. For we have shown, that by the same
necessity of its nature, whereby it exists, it likewise works (I.
xvi.). The reason or cause why God or Nature exists, and the
reason why he acts, are one and the same. Therefore, as he does
not exist for the sake of an end, so neither does he act for the
sake of an end; of his existence and of his action there is
neither origin nor end. Wherefore, a cause which is called final
is nothing else but human desire, in so far as it is considered
as the origin or cause of anything. For example, when we say
that to be inhabited is the final cause of this or that house, we
mean nothing more than that a man, conceiving the conveniences of
household life, had a desire to build a house. Wherefore, the
being inhabited, in so far as it is regarded as a final cause, is
nothing else but this particular desire, which is really the
efficient cause; it is regarded as the primary cause, because
men are generally ignorant of the causes of their desires. They
are, as I have often said already, conscious of their own actions
and appetites, but ignorant of the causes whereby they are
determined to any particular desire. Therefore, the common
saying that Nature sometimes falls short, or blunders, and
produces things which are imperfect, I set down among the glosses
treated of in the Appendix to Part I. Perfection and
imperfection, then, are in reality merely modes of thinking, or
notions which we form from a comparison among one another of
individ