Two different Portuguese texts on Causality are the subject of this paper,
one written by the Conimbricenses (16th. Century), the other by Luis António Verney
(18th. Century), the former dealing mainly with exemplar causes and second causes
(and their relations to Descartes), the latter with causality and relation. Without being
entirely a post-metaphysical period, both the Century in which Verney wrote his
Metaphysics, and the author himself, rejected the Peripatetic horizon of the Jesuits.
However, interpreting their theory on Causality as a pure repetition of Aristotle it
would be misleading and a bad contribution to a History of Philosophy in a
permanent need of revision. Thus, after assessing Verney’s ontology, the paper aims
at reestablishing the Jesuits Commentary in its own historical line, viz. as a contribution to the History of Metaphysics. In this particular point Verney’s criticism
was irrelevant, even if one may read in his Metaphysics Hume’s precise topic that
has awaken Kant from the alleged dogmatic slumber.
