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Quotation from Posterior Analytics and Physics by Aristotle
“If then it is both by nature and for an end that the swallow makes its nest and the spider its web, and plants grow leaves for the sake of the fruit and send their roots down (not up) for the sake of nourishment, it is plain that this kind of cause is operative in things which come to be and are by nature.”
Posterior Analytics and Physics, Physics II.8 (199a), trans. R. P. Hardie and R. K. Gaye (1930)
Aristotle's evidence from animals and plants that final causes operate in nature without deliberation.
Citation: "If then it is both by nature and for an end that the swallow makes its nest and the spider its web, and plants grow leaves for the sake of the fruit and send their roots down (not up) for the sake of nourishment, it is plain that this kind of cause is operative in things which come to be and are by nature." — Aristotle, Posterior Analytics and Physics, Physics II.8 (199a), trans. R. P. Hardie and R. K. Gaye (1930). (id aristotle-posterior-analytics-and-physics-q6)
Portrait: Aristotle Altemps Inv8575, After Lysippos, Public domain.
