METAPHYSICAL CONCLUSIONS 367 



their result. But the universe is not in every historical 

 detail a teleological system ; at least the human mind is 

 unable to conceive it as a " universe " throughout. There 

 is " contingency," i.e. non-teleology, in the universe, not only 

 apparently but really. 1 In other words, real teleological 

 constellations in the Inorganic if discoverable at all- 

 would only relate to a mutual harmony among different 

 classes of events with special reference to organic life in 

 general, but would not apply to this particular event at this 

 particular time and place. Problematic real teleological 

 constellations in history would only relate to general types 

 of the human mind, but not to the single personalities as such. 



It is very important in this connexion to notice well 

 that even in the only field where dynamically effective 

 individuality is known to us in the biological individual- 

 this individuality seems not to be concerned in the minutest 

 details : the single cells of a tissue are not as such a really 

 essential constituent of organisation. 



And another point is very important also : wherever the 

 category of individuality extended so far into the details 

 as to submit everything that happens in any system to the 

 immediate control of an entelechy or in the statical 

 manner at least to some such control in the past, there 

 would either be no room for causality at all, 2 or causality, at 

 least, would always be posterior to individuality. But it is 

 not imaginable that individuality is actively at work as 

 dynamical teleology or entelechy or has been at work, if 



1 We have said before that the contingency of immediate Givenness tends 

 to show us the "fact" of absoluteness. This concept of the contingency of 

 immediate Giveuness, of course, must not be confused with the concept of the 

 contingency or non-teleology of "ideal nature." 



2 This would be the mistake of the materialists, only made from the other 

 side ! 



