66. «It is widely acknowledge that the origins of modern science and philosophy are charaterized by (1) an attack on formal and final causality, (2) an exclusive emphasis on efficient and material causality, and (3) a proclamation of the future enhancement of human power. Bacon's New Organon provides classic text on this tripartite scheme: 'It is a correct position that 'true knowledge is knowledge by causes. And causes again are not improperly distributed into four kinds: the material, the formal, the efficient, and the final. But of these the final cause rather corrupts than advances the sciences, except such as have to do with human action. The discovery of the formal is despaired of. The efficient and the material (as they are investigated and received, that is, as remote causees, without reference to the latent process leading to the form) are but slight and superficial, and contribute little, if anything, to true and active science' (Bacon, The New Organon, II, Aph. 2, 121). We get a taste of what Bacon means by the final causes of human action in New Organon I. 129: 'to establish and extend the power and dominion of the human race itself over the universe'». HASSING, R., Final Causality in Nature and Human Affairs, CUA Press, Washington, D. C., 1997

Ana Marta GONZÁLEZ, Moral, razón y naturaleza, 2ª ed., Eunsa, Pamplona 2006, p. 50