But not only the order of cause and effect, even the tie between the two is entirely different in teleological causality from that in mechanical. While the natural product is an effect that cannot fail to appear, the product of art, on the contrary, is an effect that primarily never could be expected, because it has no cause in the material world; but further, if it is forthcoming, the tie between cause and effect is so loose that such a product may be left and will remain in any stage of its production. It may be just commenced, half ready, or nearly completed; be better or worse, be a failure, and so on, whereas the natural product springs forth of physical necessity from its cause and never can be different from what it is.
Wills and physical forces then stand against each other as two fundamentally and radically different causes. A will may neglect to do what it ought to, may be idle, industrious, undecided; a physical force cannot leave undone what it has to do, can never be called idle, industrious or undecided.
That man is able to produce objects of art we have sufficient evidence in material invention, from the simple stone-ax up to the most complicated machines. But if man can create products of art he must himself be a supernatural cause, as natural products produce nothing but their own kind. And not only he but also the beings that build up his organism must be supernatural causes, as we have seen that all organic matter ipso facto are products of art.
In all these different forms and species of products of art we possess, therefore, boundless masses of obvious and visible evidence that life is not a quality of matter. In order to break through the mechanical causality and introduce into the material world effects which never could be spontaneously forthcoming, life must have a supernatural origin, must be a principle independent of matter.
By resuming the demonstration that the materialists had broken off, we arrive therefore at the same conclusion that natural science had already drawn before from external observation, and with which the question of the nature of life-force is inseparably connected. The qualities of matter itself demonstrate clearly that spontaneous generation never has been, is not and never will be possible, and the tremendous labor spent during centuries to prove this by external observation seems almost a waste of time. We might as well pick out a table full of stones and sit down expecting some of them to undertake a flight around the room, as to expect living substance to come forth spontaneously from dead matter. The intrinsic qualities of matter tell us that only hope for the former occurrence can warrant faith in the latter.
We thus consider it demonstrated that Harvey’s formula is a universal natural law and we may now draw its logical consequences: Life is not a material force; no living being can therefore arise from dead matter; all life has a supernatural origin in a higher immaterial world.