These self-styled philosophers have no inkling of this. In their scheme there is nothing in the way of the soul’s rectitude and perfection—neither in knowledge nor in action—that could rescue it from misery, let alone bring it true happiness. A sign of this is that Aristotle, their first teacher, and his followers proved the existence of the First Cause solely through celestial motion. They said:

“Circular motion is a voluntary, psychic motion. The heavenly sphere subsists by its voluntary motion and is ruined when that motion ceases. The persistence of its motion depends on that for which it moves; for a voluntary agent exists only by virtue of its final cause, the goal for whose sake it moves. That goal is the First Cause, for the sphere moves in order to resemble it.”

Thus they made the continued existence of the whole universe depend on the First Cause inasmuch as it imitates Him, because anything that moves by choice must have an object it seeks. It is obvious that volitional movement pursues an object desired and loved for its own sake, and that this requirement is far stronger than the mere need for something to imitate; every being that moves by will must have an object it loves and seeks. Will cannot exist without an intended object, and that object is either sought for its own sake or for the sake of something else. An object pursued for something else is desired only on account of that other, which is either itself desired for its own sake or ultimately terminates in something that is. Otherwise an infinite regress of final causes would follow—and that is as impossible as an infinite regress of efficient causes, by the plain