INTRODUCTORY DISCUSSIONS 133 



purposes, just as do the effects of acting, and therefore the 

 processes leading to them are purposeful. Thus by regard- 

 ing certain bodies in nature as purposes we return to the 

 analogy of our own acting : in doing so we indeed merely 

 state that we could imagine ourselves wishing or liking 

 those bodies to exist, and liking their existence in the state 

 of normality. It is of no consequence to these preliminary 

 discussions that works of art or handicraft are most 

 markedly brought to their typical constellation by 

 occurrences external to them in the spatial sense, whilst 

 organisms are certainly not built up by external events in 

 space. On a later occasion this distinction will receive 

 the analysis which it undoubtedly deserves ; at present we 

 are only seeking a useful terminology. 



You might reply to our discussion by saying that nobody 

 speaks of volcanoes or of crystals as " purposes," though 

 both of them exist in indefinite exemplars. Volcanoes, 

 however, are not derived one from the other, but are due 

 most clearly to a cumulation of physico-chemical acts from 

 without in every single case, and crystals are not typically 

 composed bodies, as will be pointed out more fully on 

 another occasion. Therefore processes leading to the 

 formation of these two groups of natural bodies are by 

 no means " teleological." Indefinitely repeated bodies must 

 possess a specifically complex character, and must originate 

 from their own kind, if the processes leading to them or 

 restoring them are to be called " teleological." 



We have said that we could imagine ourselves wishing 

 the bodies called by Kant " purposes of nature " not only 

 to exist in their innumerable exemplars but also to exist 

 in the state of normality ; this discrimination requires a 



