THE PROBLEM OF UNIVERSAL TELEOLOGY 351 



Many cosmic constellations of masses, like the single 

 planetary systems, for instance, are very typical in their 

 specificity, as far as we know, and are not reducible to any 

 sort of mere symmetry in space, as the chemical elements 

 are on the theory of electrons. Now it certainly is by no 

 means proved at present that categorical teleology is appli- 

 cable to planetary or sidereal systems, that there is anything 

 like individuality to be found in them. But, on the other 

 hand, it must be granted that such a view may be possible 

 and may be proved some day, and we know that not only 

 Fechner, in an almost poetical form, but also other 

 philosophers, regarded planetary systems as real " organisms." 

 This statement, of course, would not prevent a certain sort 

 of " harmony " with regard to life from also being realised 

 in planetary arrangements. We may raise the question in 

 this connexion, whether a bacterium, endowed with human 

 reason and living somewhere in the body of man, would be 

 able to discover the wholeness and dynamico-teleological 

 nature of its host, and would not prefer to say that, as far as 

 it could judge, there was no reason for applying the category 

 of teleology, even in the statical sense, to the very strange 

 and apparently " contingent ' : ' constellation in which it was 

 living. It may be possible that we are playing the part of 

 this bacterium as regards planetary or sidereal arrangements. 



What is actually known about the specificity of 

 sidereal arrangements, apart from planetary systems in 

 particular, relates in the first place to the remarkable 

 formation of the Milky Way and the distribution of many 

 star-systems in its plane. All this proves that there is at 

 least a sidereal arrangement of a rather typical character. 



To sum up : nothing is quite certainly known, either 



