conformity to the end in view in all those phenomena which appear to us as properly planned; for instance, the organic appears to us higher than the inorganic, and yet it is in its existence not only dependent on the inorganic, but is often destroyed prematurely by it. Of course, all these limits and barriers of our teleological perception are abundantly used by all antagonists of a teleological view of the world for the basis of their position. Furthermore, the way and manner in which man fixes his ends and reaches them, is essentially different from the way and manner in which nature acts. Man seeks to attain his ends with less expenditure of power and means, the more he acts conformably to the end in view; while nature, it often enough appears to us, when we have reason to imagine an effect of its processes also as the probable end of them, reaches this end only by an immense squandering of means—for instance, the preservation of organic species simply by the production of thousands of germs and eggs, most of which perish, and but very few of which are developed, and still less are transmitted. This is a difference to which Lange points, in order to reject a theory which recognizes a striving toward an end (Zielstrebigkeit) in nature, or at most to allow it a little place as the lowest form of teleology, and to reject every attempt to regard it as analogous to human striving toward an end, as anthropomorphism. Nature, he says, acts, as if a man, in order to shoot a hare, should in a large field discharge millions of guns in all possible directions; as if he, in order to get into a locked room, should buy ten thousand different keys and try them all; as if, in order to have a house, he should build up a town and
leave the superfluous houses to wind and weather. Nobody should call such actions conformable to an end in view, and still less should we suppose behind this action any higher wisdom, hidden reasons, or superior sagacity. It is true, Wigand is right in replying to this, that when we observe such things in nature, we have to draw the conclusion that the very end supposed by the observing man—in this case, the preservation of the species—is not the only end, but that it has other ends besides; as, for instance, richness of life, inexhaustible abundance, preservation of other organisms, etc. Besides, this is but a single side of the comparison between the action of man and that of nature; and from this side action of man, conformable to an end in view, appears as a higher form of teleology, that of nature as a lower. But there are other sides of comparison, which just as clearly strike the eye; nature builds from within in full sovereignty of its process over matter and form. Man approaches his materials from without; nature works with never-erring certainty (Häckel's latest theory, that nature falsifies its laws and processes, can surely not be meant in earnest!); man often enough with error, false calculation, awkwardness, failure and capricious arbitrariness. In these directions, teleology of nature is infinitely superior to that of man.
We must be very careful in using anthropomorphism as a term of reproach. It may be used as a reproach in warning against careless reasoning and hasty comparison, but the idea of anthropomorphism is so extensible that it can be extended over all human reasoning and conception. Are not the reasons on account of which the so-called anthropomorphism is to be rejected, often
enough just as anthropomorphistic as the ideas which are attacked? For instance, when the idea of the personality of God is attacked as an anthropomorphistic one, are not the reasons with which it is assailed exactly as anthropomorphistic as the conceptions which are to be assailed? Do we not derive all our reasoning, logic, our views, and in fact everything, at first from our human nature, and do we not in our most abstract reasoning always operate simply with the laws, as they inhere in our human nature? Is there even a single scientific description conceivable without its being full of anthropomorphisms? Even the works of Darwin which, according to the opinion of these opponents of anthropomorphism, destroy anthropomorphism and teleology, are the most striking proof in favor of it. The discovery of the general reign of the law of causality invalidates, as they say, the reign of the category of teleology; for the one category contradicts the other. Suppose it were so (we will, however, immediately see that the contrary is true) whence do we know that the category of causality has the preference over that of finality or teleology? The one, as well as the other, is anthropomorphistic, and is an undoubtedly necessary form of our human reasoning. We believe in their objective validity, because we cannot believe that the sum of existences and the relations between the perceiving subject and the perceived object aim at deceiving man; we do not want to be robbed of either the one or the other category; but if the question is as to the preference of the one category over the other (which we contest), who knows whether the category of finality has not more reasons for its superiority than causality? Compare, in reference
to this whole question, also the clear analyses in the second volume of the work of Wigand, and the instructive lecture of the Duke of Argyll upon anthropomorphism in theology.
Nevertheless, all the points against teleology thus far quoted can be understood by us as attempts at rejecting the necessity of acknowledging a teleologically acting principle of the world—or, to express ourselves more clearly, of a living God—after having once rejected the deepest motive for this acknowledgment, namely: the self-testimony of God in the human conscience and mind. But it is one thing to declare that we are not obliged to accept a certain conclusion, and quite another to declare that we are obliged to accept directly the opposite of such a conclusion. It is one thing to declare that the phenomena in the world do not yet oblige us to suppose an author with a preconceived plan, and still another to declare that because I have found or still hope to find the causal connexion of phenomena conformable to the end in view, no author with a preconceived plan exists. This last assertion is one which the author of this work confesses not to understand, and in whose conclusion he cannot agree. Knowledge of the origin of something certainly does not exclude the question wherefore it exists, and does not even take its place, and when I have answered both questions satisfactorily, then I may and must justly ask whether both that for which something exists and that by which something exists, is intended or not, whether that which in the language of causality I call cause and effect, also belongs to the category of finality, according to which that very cause is at the same time called means, and that very effect also design.
The one way of viewing postulates the other as its necessary completion; and the teleological point of view is so little an impediment for the causal, that we are much more fully convinced scientifically of the correctness of the teleological way of viewing, when first the causal chain of causes and effects lies plain before our perception without any wanting links.
We still have to mention two monstrosities which, as it seems to us, necessarily result from the rejection of teleology, although the opponents of teleology contest the fact.
The one is the reduction to chance of all single formations in the world. It is true, necessity reigns in laws and their effect; but if the degree and the sum of all qualities in the world are not based the one upon the other, if especially the single organizations originate by the way of natural selection, every coincidence of each single causal chain in the world with any other causal chain is something accidental for the one as well as for the other. Now, an explanation of that in the world which is conformable to the end in view, by chance, is a scientifically illogical idea. An accidental coincidence of many circumstances can in a single case produce something which is conformable to an end in view; but the probability that the formation conformable to the end in view is again nullified by the next throw of the dice of chance, is so great, and with every following throw grows so decidedly in geometrical progression, that this probability after a few terms becomes a certainty, and we can directly demonstrate mathematically that the world without a teleological plan would be and remain a chaos. As we have seen, even Lange finds himself obliged to
admit this plan, with the exception that he makes this plan itself chance—special chance among infinitely many possibilities.