Topic summary
Material cause
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Four causes.
History of statistics
Material cause describes territory and population. Formal cause brings together law, the constitution, legislation, and customs. Final cause has to do with the goals of the state: increasing the population, guaranteeing the national defense, modernizing agriculture, developing trade. And last, efficient cause gives account of the means available to the state: the administrative and political personnel, the judicial system, the general staff, and various elites.