Chapter XXIV.—Argument for the Resurrection from the Chief End of Man.
The points proposed for consideration having been to
some extent investigated, it remains to
162examine the argument from the end or
final cause, which indeed has already emerged in what has been said,
and only requires just so much attention and further discussion as may
enable us to avoid the appearance of leaving unmentioned any of the
matters briefly referred to by us, and thus indirectly damaging the
subject or the division of topics made at the outset. For the sake of
those present, therefore, and of others who may pay attention to this
subject, it may be well just to signify that each of those things which
are constituted by nature, and of those which are made by art, must have
an end peculiar to itself, as indeed is taught us by the common sense
of all men, and testified by the things that pass before our eyes. For
do we not see that husbandmen have one end, and physicians another; and
again, the things which spring out of the earth another, and the animals
nourished upon it, and produced according to a certain natural series,
another? If this is evident, and natural and artificial powers, and the
actions arising from these, must by all means be accompanied by an end in
accordance with nature, it is absolutely necessary that the end of men,
since it is that of a peculiar nature, should be separated from community
with the rest; for it is not lawful to suppose the same end for beings
destitute of rational judgment, and of those whose actions are regulated
by the innate law and reason, and who live an intelligent life and observe
justice. Freedom from pain, therefore, cannot be the proper end for the
latter, for this they would have in common with beings utterly devoid of
sensibility: nor can it consist in the enjoyment of things which nourish
or delight the body, or in an abundance of pleasures; else a life like
that of the brutes must hold the first place, while that regulated by
virtue is without a final cause. For such an end as this, I suppose,
belongs to beasts and cattle, not to men possessed of an immortal soul
and rational judgment.
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