Full Idea
Nature has no particular goal in view, and final causes are mere human figments.
Gist of Idea
Nature has no particular goal in view, and final causes are mere human figments
Source
Baruch de Spinoza (The Ethics [1675], IApp)
Book Reference
Spinoza,Benedict de: 'Ethics, Improvement of Understanding, Letters', ed/tr. Elwes,R [Dover 1955], p.77
A Reaction
This is Spinoza's famous rejection of Aristotelian teleology, which was the last seventeenth century nail in the coffin of the great man. Spinoza substitutes God, but loss of faith in that concept then left us with no purpose at all, as in Hume.