The Biological Theory of History 315 



may deal with an aspect which fulfils the demands of a 

 certain sort of construction. To deny this in favour of an 

 exclusive cause-and-effect theory is to violate our first 

 postulate, as formulated above ; it is to assert that retro- 

 spective formulations, even iv/ien fully made out, are by 

 their own right exhaustive. In a discussion on another 

 page, we may find an indication of how such double or 

 multiple constructions of the same data may be possible 

 in the case of moral statistics. In individuals' actions, as 

 seen, for example, in the statistics of suicide, the genetic 

 character of the series is evident- -a series of which each 

 term is determined by an act of will, and illustrates a stage 

 of mental progress, while yet statistics of the series, taken 

 for a great many cases, are found to illustrate, in their 

 distribution, the law of probabilities, as strictly as do the 

 veriest mechanical events or the veriest 'chance ' sequences. 

 Another case has also been discussed above, and is men- 

 tioned again below : that of biological evolution advanc- 

 ing under the law of natural selection, and at the same 

 time possibly embodying purpose and teleology. Biological 

 progress may be teleological, and really genetic --new 

 stages of process, new genetic modes, appearing in the 

 series while, at the same time, the entire series, inter- 

 preted after it has happened, shows the character of regu- 

 larity and uniformity which justify its construction in terms 

 of natural selection from variations distributed in accord- 

 ance with the probability curve. 



7. TJie Biological Theory of History 



This general position may be given concreteness by a 

 detailed case. It is evidently in antagonism to the view 

 that human history can be exhaustively explained by the 



