344 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORGANISM 



the individual organism, might be said to show us always 

 the same ultimate entity the ultimate element of matter, 

 in purely external combinations. 



But unfortunately the term " teleology " must be under- 

 stood in the following analysis much more vaguely than it 

 was in our previous descriptive introduction (page 129). 

 We shall not be able either to establish any near analogy 

 with " my acting " or to discover real " purposes of nature ' 

 in the sense of Kant ; we must be satisfied, if we can dis- 

 cover anything whatever like a " whole " or a " unity," or a 

 " purpose," and thus all that is to follow will hardly be 

 more than the statement of subjects for future research. 



THE PROBLEM OF SUPRA-PERSONAL TELEOLOGY IN THE 



REALM OF LIFE 



History in General 



In the first place we refer to the phenomena of human 

 culture once more, as revealed in human history. We have 

 denied on a previous occasion that there is any positive 

 right at present to maintain that any group of cultural or 

 historical phenomena is more than a cumulation of the 

 actings of psychoidal and moral individuals. We quite 

 certainly know nothing at present about such a unity. But 

 it is important to notice that the problem is raised even by 

 ourselves. Categorical individuality is at work ; it sets us a 

 scientific task an eternal task perhaps. 



As in the study of the individual organism, the problematic 

 categorical theory of culture, of course, would have to begin 

 its analysis by showing, in the first place, that there is some 

 kind of descriptive-teleological unity as the subject of further 



