Now although I deny the possibility or conceivability of the contemporaneous co-operation of teleological and of causal forces in producing any effect, and although I maintain that a purely mechanical conception of the processes of nature is alone justifiable, I nevertheless believe that there is no occasion for this reason to renounce the existence of, or to disown, a directive power; only we must not imagine this to interfere directly in the mechanism of the universe, but to be rather behind the latter as the final cause of this mechanism.
Von Baer himself points this out to us, although he does not follow up the complete consequences of his arguments. He especially insists in his book, which abounds in beautiful and grand ideas, that the notions of necessity (causality) and of purpose by no means necessarily exclude one another, but rather that they can be connected together in a certain manner. Thus, the watchmaker attains his end, the watch, by combining the elastic force of a spring with wheel-work, i.e. by utilizing physical necessities; the farmer accomplishes his purpose, that of obtaining a crop of corn, by sowing the seed in suitable land, but the seed must germinate as an absolute necessity when exposed to the influences of warmth, soil, moisture, &c. Thus, in these instances a chain of necessities is undoubtedly connected with a teleological force, the human will; and it directly follows from such cases that wherever we see an aim or result attained through necessities, the directive force does not interrupt the course of the series of necessities which have already commenced, but is active before the first commencement of these necessities, since it combines and sets the latter in movement. From the moment when the mechanism of the watch is combined harmoniously and the spring wound up, it goes without the further interference of the watchmaker, just as the corn-seed when once placed in the earth develops into a plant without assistance from the farmer.
If we apply this argument to the development of the organic world, those who defend mechanical development will not be compelled to deny a teleological power, only they would have with Kant[309] to think of the latter in the only way in which it can be conceived, viz. as a Final Cause.
In the region of inorganic nature nobody any longer doubts the purely mechanical connection of the phenomena. Sunshine and rain do not now appear to us to be whims of a deity, but divine natural laws. As the knowledge of the processes of nature advances, the point where the divine power designedly interrupts these processes must be removed further back; or, as the author of the criticism of the philosophy of the Unconscious[310] expresses it, all advance in the knowledge of natural processes depends “upon the continual elimination of the idea of the miraculous.” We now believe that organic nature must be conceived as mechanical. But does it thereby follow that we must totally deny a final Universal Cause? Certainly not; it would be a great delusion if any one were to believe that he had arrived at a comprehension of the universe by tracing the phenomena of nature to mechanical principles. He would thereby forget that the assumption of eternal matter with its eternal laws by no means satisfies our intellectual need for causality. We require before everything an explanation of the fact that relationships everywhere exist between the parts of the universe—that atoms everywhere act upon one another.[311] He who can content himself with the assumption of matter may do so, but he will not be able to show that the assumption of a Universal Cause underlying the laws of nature is erroneous.
It will not be said that there is no advantage in assuming such a Final Cause, because we cannot conceive it, and indeed cannot so much as demonstrate it with certainty. It certainly lies beyond our power of conception, in the obscure region of metaphysics, and all attempts to approach it have never led to anything but an image or a formula. Nevertheless there is an advance in knowledge in the assumption of this Cause which well admits of comparison with those advances which have been led to by certain results of the new physiology of the senses. We now know that the images which give us our sense of the external world are not “actual representations having any degree of resemblance,”[312] but are only signs for certain qualities of the outer world, which do not exist as such in the latter, but belong entirely to our consciousness. Thus we know for certain that the world is not as we perceive it—that we cannot perceive “things in their essence”—and that the reality will always remain transcendental to us. But who will deny that in this knowledge there is a considerable advance, in spite of its being for the most part of a negative character? But just as we must assume behind the phenomenal world of our senses an actual world of the true nature of which we receive only an incomplete knowledge (i.e. a knowledge corresponding only in reality with the relations of time and space), so behind the co-operating forces of nature which “aim at a purpose” must we admit a Cause, which is no less inconceivable in its nature, and of which we can only say one thing with certainty, viz., that it must be teleological. Just as the former first leads us to perceive the true value of our sensual impressions, so does the latter knowledge lead us to foresee the true significance of the mechanism of the universe.
It is true that in neither case do we learn more than that there is something present which we do not perceive, but in both instances this knowledge is of the greatest value. The consciousness that behind that mechanism of the universe which is alone comprehensible to us there still lies an incomprehensible teleological Universal Cause, necessitates quite a different conception of the universe—a conception absolutely opposed to that of the materialist. Most correctly and beautifully does Von Baer say that “a purpose cannot be otherwise conceived by us than as proceeding from a will and consciousness; in this would the ‘aiming at a purpose,’ which appears to us as reasonable as it is necessary, have its deepest root.” If we conceive in this world a divine Universal Power exercising volition as the ultimate basis of matter and of the natural laws resident therein, we thus reconcile the apparent contradiction between the mechanical conception and teleology. In the same way that Von Hartmann, somewhere speaks of the immanent teleology of a machine, we might speak of the immanent teleology of the universe, because the single forces of matter are so exactly adjusted that they must give rise to the projected world, just as the wheels and levers of a machine bring forth a required manufactured article. I admit that these are grossly anthropomorphic ideas. But as mortals can we have any other ideas? Is not the notion of purpose in itself an equally anthropomorphic one? and is there any certainty that the idea of causality is less so? Do we know that causality is unlimited, or that it is universally valid? In the absence of this knowledge, should it not be permissible to satisfy as far as we can the craving of the human mind for a spiritual First Cause of the universe, by speaking of it in terms conceivable to human understanding? We can take up such a final position and still be conscious that we thereby form no certain conception, and indeed come no nearer to the reality. The materialist still makes use of the notion of “eternity,” and frequently handles it as though it were a perfectly known quantity. We nevertheless do not seriously believe that by the expression “eternal matter,” any true idea resulting from human experience is gained.
If it is asked, however, how that which in ourselves and in the remainder of the animal world is intellectual and perceptive, which thinks and wills, is ascribable to a mechanical process of organic development—whether the development of the mind can be conceived as resulting from purely mechanical laws? I answer unhesitatingly in the affirmative with the pure materialist, although I do not agree with him as to the manner in which he derives these phenomena from matter, since thinking and extension are heterogeneous things, and one cannot be considered as a product of the other. But why should not the ancient notion of “conscious matter” given out by Maupertuis and Robinet, not be again entertained, as pointed out in recent times by Fechner?[313] Would there not thus be found a useful formula for explaining phenomena hitherto quite incomprehensible?
Von Hartmann in criticizing himself, designates the sensibility of atoms as an “almost inevitable hypothesis” (p. 62), “inevitable because if sensibility were not a general and original property of the constituent elements of matter, it would be absolutely incomprehensible how through its potentiality and integration that sensibility known to us as being possessed by the organism could have arisen.” “It is impossible that from purely external elements devoid of all internality (Innerlichkeit) there should suddenly appear, by a certain mode of combination, an internality which becomes more and more richly developed. The more certainly science becomes convinced that in the sphere of externality (Äusserlichkeit) the higher (organic) phenomena are only results of combination, or are the aggregate phenomena of the elementary atomic forces, the more surely, when she once seriously concerns herself with this other question, will she not fail to be convinced that the sensibility possessed by higher stages of consciousness can be only combination-results, or the aggregate phenomena of the elementary sensations of atoms, although these atomic sensations as such always remain below the level of the higher combinations of consciousness.” In confusing this double-sided nature of the objective phenomenon “lies the main error of all materialism and of all subjective idealism. Just as the attempt of the latter (subjective idealism) to construct the external phenomena of existence in space out of functions of internality and their combinations is impossible, so is the endeavour of the former (materialism) to build up internal sensation out of any combinations of force acting externally in space equally impossible.”
I have no intention of going any deeper into these questions. I mention them only in order to point out that even from this side there appears to me no obstacle in the way of a purely mechanical conception of the processes of the universe. The naturalist may be excused if he attempts to penetrate into the region of philosophy; it arises from the wish to be able to contribute a little towards the reconciliation of the latest knowledge of the naturalist with the religious wants of the human mind—towards the aim striven for by both sides, viz. a satisfactory and harmonious view of the universe, according with the state of knowledge of our time.