MATERIALISM AND TELEOLOGY 181 



towards a common end. Both are the inevitable result 

 of the original distribution of matter in the primitive 

 chaos, a distribution fixed by a rational and foreknowing 

 Being (p. 222). 



Which of the two conceptions is to be adopted in biology? 

 Teleological explanations have long been banished from the 

 physical sciences, and in biology they are only a last resort 

 when physical explanations have proved incomplete (p. 223). 

 And if the ground of the purposiveness of living Nature is 

 the same as the ground of the purposiveness of the universe, 

 is it not reasonable to suppose that explanations which have 

 proved satisfactory for inorganic things will in time with 

 sufficient knowledge prove adequate also for organic things? 



The teleological conception, again, leads to difficulties 

 particularly when it is applied to the facts of reproduc- 

 tion. If we suppose that a vital force unifies and co- 

 ordinates the organism and is its very essence, we must 

 also suppose that this force is divisible and that a part 

 of it separated in reproduction can bring about the 

 same results as the whole. If on the contrary the forces 

 having play in the organism are the mere result of the 

 particular combination of the matter composing it, the 

 reconstruction of a particular combination of molecules in the 

 ovum is all that is necessary to set development a-going 

 along exactly the course taken by the ovum of the parent. 

 Another argument against the teleological view is derived 

 from the facts of the cell-theory. The cell-theory tells 

 us that the molecules of the living body are not immediately 

 built up in manifold combinations to form the organism, but 

 are formed first into unit-constructions or cells, and that 

 these units of composition are invariably formed in all 

 development, of plants and animals alike, however diverse 

 the goal of development may be. If there were a vital 

 principle would we not expect to find that, scorning this 

 roundabout way of reaching its goal, it went straight to the 

 mark, taking a different and distinctive course for each 

 individual development, building up the organism direct 

 without the intermediary of cells? But since there is 

 a universal principle of development, namely, the formation 

 of cells, does it not seem that the cells must be the true 



