<P> Following Bacon 's advice , the scientific search for the formal cause of things is now replaced by the search for `` laws of nature '' or `` laws of physics '' in all scientific thinking . To use Aristotle 's well - known terminology these are descriptions of efficient cause , and not formal cause or final cause . It means modern science limits its hypothesizing about non-physical things to the assumption that there are regularities to the ways of all things which do not change . </P>
which philosopher advocated the idea of return to nature
Bacon