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Full Idea
To anyone who understands a process of development, the result being developed is the reality; and it is its ability to become this that the subject undergoing development has its true nature.
Gist of Idea
If something develops, its true nature is embodied in its end
Source
T.H. Green (works [1875], iii: 224), quoted by John H. Muirhead - The Service of the State II
Book Ref
Muirhead,John H.: 'The Service of the State: T.H. Green' [John Murray 2021], p.41
A Reaction
Although this contains the dubious Hegelian idea that development tends towards some 'end', presented as fixed and final, it still seems important that anything accepted as a 'development' is the expression of some natural potential.
| 631 | For Anaxagoras the Good Mind has no opposite, and causes all movement, for a higher reason [Anaxagoras, by Aristotle] |
| 5995 | Diogenes of Apollonia offered the first teleological account of cosmology [Diogenes of Apollonia, by Robinson,TM] |
| 275 | Creation is not for you; you exist for the sake of creation [Plato] |
| 394 | An unworn sandal is in vain, but nothing in nature is in vain [Aristotle] |
| 396 | There has to be some goal, and not just movement to infinity [Aristotle] |
| 626 | Everything is arranged around a single purpose [Aristotle] |
| 5089 | Nature has purpose, and aims at what is better. Is it coincidence that crops grow when it rains? [Aristotle] |
| 2809 | If nature makes everything for a purpose, then plants and animals must have been made for man [Aristotle] |
| 20812 | Covers are for shields, and sheaths for swords; likewise, all in the cosmos is for some other thing [Chrysippus] |
| 23349 | Asses are born to carry human burdens, not as ends in themselves [Epictetus] |
| 2280 | Many causes are quite baffling, so it is absurd to deduce causes from final purposes [Descartes] |
| 23040 | If something develops, its true nature is embodied in its end [Green,TH] |
| 15963 | Science has been partly motivated by the belief that the universe is run by God's laws [Alexander,P] |