The universal teleology or design of organised nature relative to the
continuance of every existing being, together with the adaptation of
organised to unorganised nature, cannot without violence enter into the
connection of any philosophical system except that one which makes a
_will_ the basis of the existence of every natural being; a will which
accordingly expresses its nature and tendency not merely in the actions,
but already in the _form_ of the phenomenal organism. In the preceding
chapter I have merely indicated the account which our system of thought
gives of this subject, since I have already expounded it in the passage of
the first volume referred to below, and with special clearness and fulness
in “The Will in Nature,” under the rubric “Comparative Anatomy.”
The astounding amazement which is wont to take possession of us when we
consider the endless design displayed in the construction of organised
beings ultimately rests upon the certainly natural but yet false
assumption that that _adaptation_ of the parts to each other, to the whole
of the organism and to its aims in the external world, as we comprehend it
and judge of it by means of _knowledge_, thus upon the path of the _idea_,
has also come into being upon the same path; thus that as it exists _for_
the intellect, it was also brought about _by_ the intellect. We certainly
can only bring about something regular and conforming to law, such, for
example, as every crystal is, under the guidance of the law and the rule;
and in the same way, we can only bring about something designed under the
guidance of the conception of the end; but we are by no means justified in
imputing this limitation of ours to nature, which is itself prior to all
intellect, and whose action is entirely different in kind from ours, as
was said in the preceding chapter. It accomplishes that which appears so
designed and planned without reflection and without conception of an end,
because without idea, which is of quite secondary origin. Let us first
consider what is merely according to rule, not yet adapted to ends. The
six equal radii of a snowflake, separating at equal angles, are measured
beforehand by no knowledge; but it is the simple tendency of the original
will, which so exhibits itself to knowledge when knowledge appears. As now
here the will brings about the regular figure without mathematics, so also
without physiology does it bring about the form which is organised and
furnished with organs evidently adapted to special ends. The regular form
in space only exists for the perception, the perceptive form of which is
space; so the design of the organism only exists for the knowing reason,
the reflection of which is bound to the conceptions of end and means. If
direct insight into the working of nature was possible for us, we would
necessarily recognise that the wonder excited by teleology referred to
above is analogous to that which that savage referred to by Kant in his
explanation of the ludicrous felt when he saw the froth irresistibly
foaming out of a bottle of beer which had just been opened, and expressed
his wonder not that it should come out, but that any one had ever been
able to get it in; for we also assume that the teleology of natural
productions has been put in the same as it comes out for us. Therefore our
astonishment at design may likewise be compared to that which the first
productions of the art of printing excited in those who considered them
under the supposition that they were works of the pen, and therefore had
to resort to the assumption of the assistance of a devil in order to
explain them. For, let it be said again, it is our intellect which by
means of its own forms, space, time, and causality, apprehends as object
the act of will, in itself metaphysical and indivisible, which exhibits
itself in the phenomenon of an animal,—it is our intellect which first
produces the multiplicity and diversity of the parts, and is then struck
with amazement at their perfect agreement and conspiring together, which
proceeds from the original unity; whereby then, in a certain sense, it
marvels at its own work.
If we give ourselves up to the contemplation of the indescribably and
infinitely ingenious construction of any animal, even if it were only the
commonest insect, lose ourselves in admiration of it, and it now occurs to
us that nature recklessly exposes even this exceedingly ingenious and
highly complicated organism daily and by thousands to destruction by
accident, animal rapacity, and human wantonness, this wild prodigality
fills us with amazement; but our amazement is based upon an ambiguity of
the conceptions, for we have in our minds the human work of art which is
accomplished by the help of the intellect and by overcoming a foreign and
resisting material, and therefore certainly costs much trouble. Nature’s
works, on the contrary, however ingenious they may be, cost her absolutely
no trouble; for here the will to work is already the work itself, since,
as has already been said, the organism is merely the visibility of the
will which is here present, brought about in the brain.
In consequence of the nature of organised beings which has been set forth,
teleology, as the assumption of the adaptation of every part to its end,
is a perfectly safe guide in considering the whole of organised nature; on
the other hand, in a metaphysical regard, for the explanation of nature
beyond the possibility of experience, it must only be regarded as valid in
a secondary and subsidiary manner for the confirmation of principles of
explanation which are otherwise established: for here it belongs to the
problems which have to be given account of. Accordingly, if in some animal
a part is found of which we do not see any use, we must never venture the
conjecture that nature has produced it aimlessly, perhaps trifling, or out
of mere caprice. Certainly it is possible to conceive something of this
kind under the Anaxagorean assumption that the disposition of nature has
been brought about by means of an ordering understanding, which, as such,
obeys a foreign will; but not under the assumption that the true inner
being (_i.e._, outside of our idea) of every organism is simply and solely
_its own will_; for then the existence of every part is conditioned by the
circumstance that in some way it serves the will which here lies at its
foundation, expresses and realises some tendency of it, and consequently
in some way contributes to the maintenance of this organism. For apart
from _the will which manifests itself in it_, and the conditions of the
external world under which this has voluntarily undertaken to live, for
the conflict with which its whole form and disposition is already adapted,
nothing can have influenced it and determined its form and parts, thus no
arbitrary power, no caprice. On this account everything in it must be
designed; and therefore final causes (_causæ finales_) are the clue to the
understanding of organised nature, as efficient causes (_causæ
efficientes_) are the clue to the understanding of unorganised nature. It
depends upon this, that if in anatomy or zoology, we cannot find the end
or aim of an existing part, our understanding receives a shock similar to
that which it receives in physics from an effect whose cause remains
concealed; and as we assume the latter as necessary, so also we assume the
former, and therefore go on searching for it, however long we may already
have done so in vain. This is, for example, the case with the spleen, as
to the use of which men never cease inventing hypotheses, till some day
one shall have proved itself correct. So is it also with the large spiral‐
formed teeth of the babyroussa, the horn‐shaped excrescences of certain
caterpillars, and more of the like. Negative cases are also judged by us
according to the same rule; for example, that in a class which, as a
whole, is so uniform as that of lizards, so important a part as the
bladder is present in many species, while it is wanting in others;
similarly that dolphins and certain cetacea related to them are entirely
without olfactory nerves, while the rest of the cetacea and even fishes
have them: there must be a reason which determines this.
Individual real exceptions to this universal law of design in organised
nature have indeed been discovered, and with great surprise; but in these
cases that _exceptio firmat regulam_ applies, since they can be accounted
for upon other grounds. Such, for example, is the fact that the tadpoles
of the pipa toad have tails and gills, although, unlike all other
tadpoles, they do not swim, but await their metamorphosis on the back of
the mother; that the male kangaroo has the marsupial bones which in the
female carry the pouch; that male mammals have breasts; that the _Mus
typhlus_, a rat, has eyes, although very small ones, without any opening
for them in the outer skin, which thus covers them, clothed with hair; and
that the moles of the Apennines, and also two fishes—_Murena cœcilia_ and
_Gastrobrauchus cœcus_—are in the same case; of like kind is the _Proteus
anguinus_. These rare and surprising exceptions to the rule of nature,
which is otherwise so rigid, these contradictions with itself into which
it falls, we must explain from the inner connection which the different
kinds of phenomena have with each other, by virtue of the unity of that
which manifests itself in them, and in consequence of which nature must
hint at some thing in one, simply because another of the same type
actually has it. Accordingly the male animal has a rudimentary form of an
organ which is actually present in the female. As now here the difference
of the _sex_ cannot abolish the type of the _species_, so also the type of
a whole order—for example, of the batrachia—asserts itself even where in
one particular species (pipa) one of its determinations is superfluous.
Still less can nature allow a determination (eyes) which belongs to the
type of a whole division (Vertebrata) to vanish entirely without a trace,
even if it is wanting in some particular species (_Mus typhlus_) as
superfluous; but here also it must at least indicate in a rudimentary
manner what it carries out in all the others.
Even from this point of view it is to some extent possible to see upon
what depends that _homology_ in the skeleton primarily of mammals, and in
a wider sense of all vertebrates, which has been so fully explained,
especially by Richard Owen in his “_Ostéologie comparée_,” and on account
of which, for example, all mammals have seven cervical vertebræ, every
bone of the human hand and arm finds its analogue in the fin of the whale,
the skull of the bird in the egg has exactly as many bones as that of the
human fœtus, &c. All this points to a principle which is independent of
teleology, but which is yet the foundation upon which teleology builds, or
the already given material for its works, and just that which Geoffroy St.
Hilaire has explained as the “anatomical element.” It is the _unité de
plan_, the fundamental type of the higher animal world, as it were the
arbitrarily chosen key upon which nature here plays.
Aristotle has already correctly defined the difference between the
efficient cause (_causa efficiens_) and the final cause (_causa finalis_)
in these words: “Δυο τροποι της αιτιας, το οὑ ἑνεκα και το εξ αναγκης, και
δει λεγοντας τυγχανειν μαλιστα μεν αμφοιν.” (_Duo sunt causæ modi: alter
cujus gratia, et alter e necessitate; ac potissimum utrumque eruere
oportet._) _De part. anim._, i. 1. The efficient cause is that _whereby_
something is, the final cause that _on account of which_ it is; the
phenomenon to be explained has, in time, the former _behind_ it, and the
latter _before_ it. Only in the case of the voluntary actions of animal
beings do the two directly unite, for here the final cause, the end,
appears as the motive; a motive, however, is always the true and proper
_cause_ of the action, is wholly and solely its _efficient_ cause, the
change preceding it which calls it forth, by virtue of which it
necessarily appears, and without which it could not happen; as I have
shown in my prize essay upon freedom. For whatever of a physiological
nature one might wish to insert between the act of will and the corporeal
movement, the _will_ always remains here confessedly that which moves, and
what moves _it_ is the _motive_ coming from without, thus the _causa
finalis_; which consequently appears here as _causa efficiens_. Besides,
we know from what has gone before that the bodily movement is one with the
act of will, for it is merely its phenomenal appearance in cerebral
perception. This union of the _causa finalis_ with the efficient cause in
the one phenomenon _intimately_ known to us, which accordingly remains
throughout our typical phenomenon, is certainly to be firmly retained; for
it leads precisely to the conclusion that at least in organised nature,
the knowledge of which has throughout final causes for its clue, a _will_
is the forming power. In fact, we cannot otherwise distinctly think a
final cause except as an end in view, _i.e._, a motive. Indeed, if we
carefully consider the final causes in nature in order to express their
transcendent nature, we must not shrink from a contradiction, and boldly
say: the final cause is a motive which acts upon a being, by which it is
not known. For certainly the termite nests are the motive which has
produced the toothless muzzle of the ant‐bear, and also its long
extensile, glutinous tongue: the hard egg‐shell which holds the chicken
imprisoned is certainly the motive for the horny point with which its beak
is provided in order to break through that shell, after which it throws it
off as of no further use. And in the same way the laws of the reflection
and refraction of light are the motive for the wonderfully ingenious and
complex optical instrument, the human eye, which has the transparency of
its cornea, the different density of its three humours, the form of its
lens, the blackness of its choroid, the sensitiveness of its retina, the
contracting power of its pupil, and its muscular system, accurately
calculated according to those laws. But those motives acted before they
were apprehended; it is not otherwise, however contradictory it may sound.
For here is the transition of the physical into the metaphysical. But the
latter we have already recognised in the _will_; therefore we must see
that the will which extends an elephant’s trunk towards an object is the
same will which has also called it forth and formed it, anticipating
objects.
It is in conformity with this that in the investigation of _organised_
nature we are entirely referred to _final causes_, everywhere seek for
these and explain everything from them. The _efficient causes_, on the
contrary, here assume only a quite subordinate position as the mere tools
of the final causes, and, just as in the case of the voluntary movement of
the limbs, which is confessedly effected by external motives, they are
rather assumed than pointed out. In explaining the physiological
_functions_ we certainly look about for the efficient causes, though for
the most part in vain; but in explaining the origin of the parts we again
look for them no more, but are satisfied with the final causes alone. At
the most we have here some such general principle as that the larger the
part is to be the stronger must be the artery that conducts blood to it;
but of the actually efficient causes which bring about, for example, the
eye, the ear, the brain, we know absolutely nothing. Indeed, even in
explaining the mere functions the final cause is far more important and
more to the point than the efficient; therefore, if the former alone is
known we are instructed and satisfied with regard to the principal matter,
while, on the other hand, the efficient cause alone helps us little. For
example, if we really knew the _efficient cause_ of the circulation of the
blood, as we do not, but still seek it, this would help us little unless
we knew the final cause, that the blood must go into the lungs for the
purpose of oxidation, and again flow back for the purpose of nourishing;
but by the knowledge of this, even without the knowledge of the efficient
cause, we have gained much light. Moreover, I am of opinion, as was said
above, that the circulation of the blood has no properly efficient cause,
but that the will is here as immediately active as in muscular movement
where motives determine it by means of nerve conduction, so that here also
the movement is called forth directly by the final cause; thus by the need
of oxidation in the lungs, which here to a certain extent acts as a motive
upon the blood, yet so that the mediation of knowledge is in this case
wanting, because everything takes place in the interior of the organism.
The so‐called metamorphosis of plants, a thought lightly thrown out by
Kaspar Wolf, which, under this hyperbolic title, Goethe pompously and with
solemn delivery expounds as his own production, belongs to the class of
explanations of organic nature from the efficient cause; although
ultimately he only says that nature does not in the case of every
production begin from the beginning and create out of nothing, but as it
were, writing on in the same style, adds on to what already exists, makes
use of the earlier forms, developed, and raised to higher power, to carry
its work further: just as it has done in the ascending series of animals
entirely in accordance with the law: _Natura non facit saltus, et quod
commodissimum in omnibus suis operationibus sequitur_ (_Arist. de incessu
animalium, c. 2 et 8_). Indeed, to explain the blossom by pointing out in
all its parts the form of the leaf seems to me almost the same as
explaining the structure of a house by showing that all its parts,
storeys, balconies, and garrets, are only composed of bricks and mere
repetitions of the original unity of the brick. And not much better,
though much more problematical, seems to me the explanation of the skull
from vertebræ, although even here also it is a matter of course that the
covering or case of the brain will not be absolutely different and
entirely disparate from that of the spinal cord, of which it is the
continuation and terminal knob, but will rather be a carrying out of the
same kind of thing. This whole method of consideration belongs to the
Homology of Richard Owen referred to above. On the other hand, it seems to
me that the following explanation of the nature of the flower from its
_final cause_, suggested by an Italian whose name has escaped me, is a far
more satisfactory account to give. The end of the _corolla_ is—(1.)
Protection of the pistil and the _stamina_; (2.) by means of it the
purified saps are prepared, which are concentrated in the _pollen_ and
_germs_; (3.) from the glands of its base the essential oil distils which,
for the most part as a fragrant vapour, surrounding the anthers and
pistil, protects them to a certain extent from the influence of the damp
air. It is also one of the advantages of final causes that every
_efficient_ cause always ultimately rests upon something that cannot be
fathomed, a force of nature, _i.e._, a _qualitas occulta_, and, therefore,
it can only give a _relative_ explanation; while the final cause within
its sphere affords a sufficient and perfect explanation. It is true we are
only perfectly content when we know both the efficient cause, also called
by Aristotle ἡ αιτια εξ αναγκης, and the final cause, ἡ χαριν του
βελτιονος, at once and yet separately, as their concurrence, their
wonderful working together, then surprises us, and on account of it the
best appears as the absolutely necessary, and the necessary again as if it
were merely the best and not necessary; for then arises in us the dim
perception that both causes, however different may be their origin, are
yet connected in the root, in the nature of the thing in itself. But such
a twofold knowledge is seldom attainable; in _organised_ nature, because
the efficient cause is seldom known to us; in _unorganised_ nature,
because the final cause remains problematical. However, I will illustrate
this by a couple of examples as good as I find within the range of my
physiological knowledge, for which physiologists may be able to substitute
clearer and more striking ones. The louse of the negro is black. Final
cause: its own safety. Efficient cause: because its nourishment is the
black _rete Malpighi_ of the negro. The multifarious, brilliant, and gay
colouring of the plumage of tropical birds is explained, although only
very generally, from the strong effect of the light in the tropics, as its
efficient cause. As the final cause I would assign that those brilliant
feathers are the gorgeous uniform in which the individuals of the
innumerable species there, often belonging to the same genus, may
recognise each other; so that each male may find his female. The same
holds good of butterflies of different zones and latitudes. It has been
observed that consumptive women, in the last stage of their illness,
readily become pregnant, that the disease stops during pregnancy, but
after delivery appears again worse than before, and now generally results
in death: similarly that consumptive men generally beget another child in
the last days of their life. The _final cause_ here is that nature, always
so anxiously concerned for the maintenance of the species, seeks to
replace by a new individual the approaching loss of one in the prime of
life; the _efficient cause_, on the other hand, is the unusually excited
state of the nervous system which occurs in the last period of
consumption. From the same final cause is to be explained the analogous
phenomenon that (according to Oken, _Die Zeugung_, p. 65) flies poisoned
with arsenic still couple, and die in the act of copulation. The final
cause of the pubes in both sexes, and of the Mons Veneris in the female,
is that even in the case of very thin subjects the Ossa pubis shall not be
felt, which might excite antipathy; the efficient cause, on the other
hand, is to be sought in the fact that wherever the mucous membrane passes
over to the outer skin, hair grows in the vicinity; and, secondly, also
that the head and the genitals are to a certain extent opposite poles of
each other, and therefore have various relations and analogies between
them, among which is that of being covered with hair. The same efficient
cause holds good also of the beard of the man; the final cause of it, I
suppose, lies in the fact that the pathogonomic signs, thus the rapid
alterations of the countenance betraying every movement of the mind, are
principally visible in the mouth and its vicinity; therefore, in order to
conceal these from the prying eye of the adversary, as something dangerous
in bargaining, or in sudden emergencies, nature gave man the beard (which
shows that _homo homini lupus_). The woman, on the other hand, could
dispense with this; for with her dissimulation and command of countenance
are inborn. As I have said, there must be far more apt examples to be
found to show how the completely blind working of nature unites in the
result with the apparently intentional, or, as Kant calls it, the
mechanism of nature with its technic; which points to the fact that both
have their common origin beyond their difference in the will as the thing
in itself. Much would be achieved for the elucidation of this point of
view, if, for example, we could find the efficient cause which carries the
driftwood to the treeless polar lands, or that which has concentrated the
dry land of our planet principally in the northern half of it; while it is
to be regarded as the final cause of this that the winter of that half,
because it occurs in the perihelion which accelerates the course of the
earth, is eight days shorter, and hereby is also milder. Yet in
considering _unorganised_ nature the final cause is always ambiguous, and,
especially when the _efficient_ cause is found, leaves us in doubt whether
it is not a merely subjective view, an aspect conditioned by our point of
view. In this respect, however, it may be compared to many works of art;
for example, to coarse mosaics, theatre decorations, and to the god
Apennine at Pratolino, near Florence, composed of large masses of rock,
all of which only produce their effect at a distance, and vanish when we
come near, because instead of them the efficient cause of their appearance
now becomes visible: but the forms are yet actually existent, and are no
mere imagination. Analogous to this, then, are the final causes in
unorganised nature, if the efficient causes appear. Indeed, those who take
a wide view of things would perhaps allow it to pass if I added that
something similar is the case with omens.
For the rest, if any one desires to misuse the _external_ design, which,
as has been said, always remains ambiguous for physico‐theological
demonstrations, which is done even at the present day, though it is to be
hoped only by Englishmen, there are in this class enough examples _in
contrarium_, thus ateleological instances, to derange his conception. One
of the strongest is presented by the unsuitableness of sea‐water for
drinking, in consequence of which man is never more exposed to the danger
of dying of thirst than in the midst of the greatest mass of water on his
planet. “Why, then, does the sea need to be salt?” let us ask our
Englishman.
That in _unorganised_ nature the final causes entirely withdraw into the
background, so that an explanation from them alone is here no longer
valid, but the efficient causes are rather indispensably required, depends
upon the fact that the will which objectifies itself here also no longer
appears in individuals which constitute a whole for themselves, but in
forces of nature and their action, whereby end and means are too far
separated for their relation to be clear and for us to recognise a
manifestation of will in it. This already occurs in organised nature, in a
certain degree, when the design is an external one, _i.e._, the end lies
in _one_ individual and the means in _another_. Yet even here it remains
unquestionable so long as the two belong to the same species, indeed it
then becomes the more striking. Here we have first to count the
reciprocally adapted organisation of the genitals of the two sexes, and
then also many circumstances that assist the propagation of the species,
for example, in the case of the _Lampyris noctiluca_ (the glowworm) the
circumstance that only the male, which does not shine, has wings to enable
it to seek out the female; the wingless female, on the other hand, since
it only comes out in the evening, possesses the phosphorescent light, so
that the male may be able to find it. Yet in the case of the _Lampyris
Italica_ both sexes shine, which is an instance of the natural luxury of
the South. But a striking, because quite special, example of the kind of
design we are speaking of is afforded by the discovery made by Geoffroy
St. Hilaire, in his last years, of the more exact nature of the sucking
apparatus of the cetacea. Since all sucking requires the action of
respiration, it can only take place in the respirable medium itself, and
not under water, where, however, the sucking young of the whale hangs on
to the teats of the mother; now to meet this the whole mammary apparatus
of the cetacea is so modified that it has become an injecting organ, and
placed in the mouth of the young injects the milk into it without it
requiring to suck. When, on the contrary, the individual that affords
essential help to another belongs to an entirely different species, and
even to another kingdom of nature, we will doubt this external design just
as in unorganised nature; unless it is evident that the maintenance of the
species depends upon it. But this is the case with many plants whose
fructification only takes place by means of insects, which either bear the
pollen to the stigma or bend the stamina to the pistil. The common
barberry, many kinds of iris, and _Aristolochia Clematitis_ cannot
fructify themselves at all without the help of insects (_Chr. Cour._
Sprengel, _Entdecktes Geheimniss, &c._, 1793; Wildenow, _Grundriss der
Kräuterkunde_, 353). Very many diœcia, monœcia, and polygamia are in the
same position. The reciprocal support which the plant and the insect
worlds receive from each other will be found admirably described in
Burdach’s large Physiology, vol. i. § 263. He very beautifully adds: “This
is no mechanical assistance, no make‐shift, as if nature had made the
plants yesterday, and had committed an error which she tries to correct
to‐day through the insect; it is rather a deep‐lying sympathy between the
plant and the animal worlds. It ought to reveal the identity of the two.
Both, children of one mother, ought to subsist with each other and through
each other.” And further on: “But the organised world stands in such a
sympathy with the unorganised world also,” &c. A proof of this _consensus
naturæ_ is also afforded by the observation communicated in the second
volume of the “Introduction into Entomology” by Kirby and Spence, that the
insect eggs that pass the winter attached to the twigs of the trees, which
serve as nourishment for their larvæ, are hatched exactly at the time at
which the twig buds; thus, for example, the aphis of the birch a month
earlier than that of the ash. Similarly, that the insects of perennial
plants pass the winter upon these as eggs; but those of mere annuals,
since they cannot do this, in the state of pupæ.
Three great men have entirely rejected teleology, or the explanation from
final causes, and many small men have echoed them. These three are,
Lucretius, Bacon of Verulam, and Spinoza. But in the case of all three we
know clearly enough the source of this aversion, namely, that they
regarded it as inseparable from speculative theology, of which, however,
they entertained so great a distrust (which Bacon indeed prudently sought
to conceal) that they wanted to give it a wide berth. We find Leibnitz
also entirely involved in this prejudice, for, with characteristic
naïveté, he expresses it as something self‐evident in his _Lettre à M.
Nicaise_ (_Spinozæ op. ed Paulus_, vol. ii. p. 672): “_Les causes finales,
ou ce qui est la même chose, la consideration de la sagesse divine dans
l’ordre des choses._” (The devil also _même chose_!) At the same point of
view we find, indeed, Englishmen even at the present day. The Bridgewater‐
Treatise‐men—Lord Brougham, &c.—nay, even Richard Owen also, in his
“_Ostéologie Comparée_,” thinks precisely as Leibnitz, which I have
already found fault with in the first volume. To all these teleology is at
once also theology, and at every instance of design recognised in nature,
instead of thinking and learning to understand nature, they break at once
into the childish cry, “Design! design!” then strike up the refrain of
their old wives’ philosophy, and stop their ears against all rational
arguments, such as, however, the great Hume has already advanced against
them.(5)
The ignorance of the Kantian philosophy now, after seventy years, which is
really a disgrace to Englishmen of learning, is principally responsible
for this whole outcast position of the English; and this ignorance, again,
depends, at least in great measure, upon the nefarious influence of the
detestable English clergy, with whom stultification of every kind is a
thing after their own hearts, so that only they may be able still to hold
the English nation, otherwise so intelligent, involved in the most
degrading bigotry; therefore, inspired by the basest obscurantism, they
oppose with all their might the education of the people, the investigation
of nature, nay, the advancement of all human knowledge in general; and
both by means of their connections and by means of their scandalous,
unwarrantable wealth, which increases the misery of the people, they
extend their influence even to university teachers and authors, who
accordingly (for example, Th. Brown, “On Cause and Effect”) resort to
suppressions and perversions of every kind simply in order to avoid
opposing even in a distant manner that “cold superstition” (as Pückler
very happily designates their religion, or the current arguments in its
favour).
But, on the other hand, the three great men of whom we are speaking, since
they lived long before the dawn of the Kantian philosophy, are to be
pardoned for their distrust of teleology on account of its origin; yet
even Voltaire regarded the physico‐theological proof as irrefutable. In
order, however, to go into this somewhat more fully: first of all, the
polemic of Lucretius (iv. 824‐858) against teleology is so crude and
clumsy that it refutes itself and convinces us of the opposite. But as
regards Bacon (_De augm. scient._, iii. 4), he makes, in the first place,
no distinction with reference to the use of final causes between organised
and unorganised nature (which is yet just the principal matter), for, in
his examples of final causes, he mixes the two up together. Then he
banishes final causes from physics to metaphysics; but the latter is for
him, as it is still for many at the present day, identical with
speculative theology. From this, then, he regards final causes as
inseparable, and goes so far in this respect that he blames Aristotle
because he has made great use of final causes, yet without connecting them
with speculative theology (which I shall have occasion immediately
especially to praise). Finally, Spinoza (_Eth._ i. _prop._ 36, _appendix_)
makes it abundantly clear that he identifies teleology so entirely with
physico‐theology, against which he expresses himself with bitterness, that
he explains _Natura nihil frustra agere_: _hoc est, quod in usum hominum
non sit_: similarly, _Omnia naturalia tanquam ad suum utile media
considerant, et credunt aliquem alium esse, qui illa media paraverit_; and
also: _Hinc statuerunt, Deos omnia in usum hominum fecisse et dirigere_.
Upon this, then, he bases his assertion: _Naturam finem nullum sibi
præfixum habere et omnes causas finales nihil, nisi humana esse figmenta_.
His aim merely was to block the path of theism; and he had quite rightly
recognised the physico‐theological proof as its strongest weapon. But it
was reserved for Kant really to refute this proof, and for me to give the
correct exposition of its material, whereby I have satisfied the maxim:
_Est enim verum index sui et falsi_. But Spinoza did not know how else to
help himself but by the desperate stroke of denying teleology itself, thus
design in the works of nature—an assertion the monstrosity of which is at
once evident to every one who has gained any accurate knowledge of
organised nature. This limited point of view of Spinoza, together with his
complete ignorance of nature, sufficiently prove his entire incompetence
in this matter, and the folly of those who, upon his authority, believe
they must judge contemptuously of final causes.
Aristotle, who just here shows his brilliant side, contrasts very
advantageously with these modern philosophers. He goes unprejudiced to
nature, knows of no physico‐theology—such a thing has never entered his
mind,—and he has never looked at the world for the purpose of seeing
whether it was a bungled piece of work. He is in his heart pure from all
this, for he also sets up hypotheses as to the origin of animals and men
(_De generat. anim._, iii. 11) without lighting upon the physico‐
theological train of thought. He always says: “ἡ φυσις ποιει (_natura
facit_), never ἡ φυσις πεποιηται” (_natura facta est_). But after he has
truly and diligently studied nature, he finds that it everywhere proceeds
teleologically, and he says: “ματην ὁρωμεν ουδεν ποιουσαν την φυσιν”
(_naturam nihil frustra facere cernimus_), _De respir._, c. 10; and in the
books, _De partibus animalium_, which are a comparative anatomy: “Ουδε
περιεργον ουδεν, ουτε ματην ἡ φυσις ποιει.—Ἡ φυσις ἑνεκα του ποιει
παντα.—Πανταχου δε λεγομεν τοδε τουδε ἑνεκα, ὁπου αν φαινηται τελος τι,
προς ὁ ἡ κινησις περαινει; ὡστε ειναι φανερον, ὁτι εστι τι τοιουτον, ὁ δη
και καλουμεν φυσιν. Επει το σωμα οργανον; ἑνεκα τινος γαρ ἑκαστον των
μοριων, ομοιως τε και το ὁλον.” (_Nihil supervacaneum, nihil frustra
natura facit.—Natura rei alicujus gratia facit omnia.—Rem autem hanc esse
illius gratia asserere ubique solemus, quoties finem intelligimus aliquem,
in quem motus terminetur; quocirca ejusmodi aliquid esse constat, quod
Naturam vocamus. Est enim corpus instrumentum: nam membrum unumquodque __
rei alicujus gratia est, tum vero totum ipsum._) At greater length, p. 633
and 645 of the Berlin quarto edition, and also _De incessu animalium_, c.
2: “Ἡ φυσις ουδεν ποιει ματην, αλλ᾽ αει, εκ των ενδεχομενων τῃ ουσιᾳ, περι
ἑκαστον γενος ζωου το αριστον.” (_Natura nihil frustra facit, sed semper
ex iis, quæ cuique animalium generis essentiæ contingunt, id quod optimum
est._) But he expressly recommends teleology at the end of the books _De
generatione animalium_, and blames Democritus for having denied it, which
is just what Bacon, in his prejudice, praises in him. Especially, however,
in the “Physica,” ii. 8, p. 198, Aristotle speaks _ex professo_ of final
causes, and establishes them as the true principle of the investigation of
nature. In fact, every good and regular mind must, in considering
organised nature, hit upon teleology, but unless it is determined by the
preconceived opinions, by no means either upon physico‐theology or upon
the anthropo‐teleology condemned by Spinoza. With regard to Aristotle
generally, I wish further to draw attention to the fact here, that his
teaching, so far as it concerns _unorganised_ nature, is very defective
and unserviceable, as in the fundamental conceptions of mechanics and
physics he accepts the most gross errors, which is the less pardonable,
since before him the Pythagoreans and Empedocles had been upon the right
path and had taught much better. Empedocles indeed, as we learn from
Aristotle’s second book, _De cœlo_ (c. 1, p. 284), had already grasped the
conception of a tangential force arising from rotation, and counteracting
gravity, which Aristotle again rejects. Quite the reverse, however, is
Aristotle’s relation to the investigation of _organised_ nature. This is
his field; here the wealth of his knowledge, the keenness of his
observation, nay, sometimes the depth of his insight, astonish us. Thus,
to give just one example, he already knew the antagonism in which in the
ruminants the horns and the teeth of the upper jaw stand to each other, on
account of which, therefore, the latter are wanting where the former are
found, and conversely (_De partib. anim._, iii. 2). Hence then, also his
correct estimation of final causes.