THE PROBLEM OF UNIVERSAL TELEOLOGY 34*7 



as such might again be due to intrinsic or constellative and 

 machine-like teleology. There are few domains in science 

 where we are so ignorant as we are here. 



Thus the category of individuality only establishes tasks 

 in biology, except so far as the personal individual is 

 concerned. 



The Significance of Propagation 



But is there not one class of facts which seems to show 

 beyond any doubt a purposefulness that exceeds the range 

 of the biological individual as such ? Yes, there is a class 

 of organic phenomena, which have been mentioned only 

 quite incidentally so far, since they have nothing to do with 

 what we have studied almost exclusively, the organic personal 

 individual. I refer to the simple phenomenon of propagation. 



We have already studied inheritance, that is, the fact 

 that the young organism resembles its parents. We have 

 also analysed the significance of the development of the egg 

 of an animal, or any sort of germ or bud whatever. The 

 manifestation of entelechy, as we called it, in an egg or gerni 

 was found to be a mere subclass of universal restitution of 

 fragments, in its ontological sense. 



But we have not said a single word about the significance 

 of the individual organism's actively producing " fragments," 

 to be developed under the control of entelechy. The problem 

 is certainly unique. 1 



Have we not here the very source of all that can be 

 teleoloincal or " individual ' in a higher than the ordinary 



O Ow 



1 This problem, of course, has nothing to do with the problem of sexual 

 propagation, shortly mentioned at vol. i. p. 33. I feel unable to add anything 

 positive to the critical remarks there ; the problem is beyond us at present. 



