348 SCIENCE AND PHILOSOPHY OF THE ORGANISM 



sense ? Does it not seem as if propagation as such were 

 to serve a supra-personal purpose ? In any case, in no 

 other sense can propagation be understood at all, 1 and it 

 is therefore that we mention it in this connexion and in no 

 other. But here also we know nothing. 



7. HARMONY IN NATURE 



Let us now proceed to the analysis of a certain type of 

 problematic teleology which also relates to supra-personal life, 

 but is not historical in any sense. 



Nobody at the present day, so far as I am aware, 

 conceives teleologically in any way the origin of islands, 

 mountains, clouds, rivers, or any other form of inorganic 

 combinations on the earth. But such teleology, at least con- 

 ceived statically, played an important role in the eighteenth 

 century. And in the same way the different types of 

 organisms were considered as being in mutual teleological 

 correspondence, animals indeed in their present state being 

 certainly unable to exist without plants. This is the real 

 concept of a harmony in nature, both organic and inorganic. 



But the concept of this harmony with regard to the 

 Inorganic goes still deeper, from geology and geography to 

 inorganic elementalities : the properties of iron and salt are 

 regarded as instances of " harmony," and so is the fact that 

 water attains its greatest density at -+- 4 C. and not at 

 freezing-point. 



I do not hesitate to confess that, apart from historical 



1 The only possible objection to this view seems to be as follows : entelechy 

 might know that it cannot overcome inorganic potentials for indefinite time 

 and might therefore secure points of future manifestation. But even this 

 would be "supra-personal" to a certain extent. 



