THE PROBLEM OF FINAL CAUSES. 



375 



produce the intended effects. Final causes are 

 not miracles, they are not effects without causes. 

 Therefore it is not strange that, in passing from 

 organs to their elements, we find primordial prop- 

 erties, of which the combination or distribution 

 produces those complex effects that are called 

 animal functions. The most subtile and skillful 

 art, were it divine art itself, will never produce a 

 whole except by employing elements endowed 

 with properties that make that whole possible. 

 The problem, for the thinker, is to explain how 

 these elements could come into coordination and 

 distribution in a way to produce those final re- 

 sults that we call a plant, an animal, a man. 



Since we maintain that the old comparison 

 made by Aristotle between art and Nature is 

 legitimate, let us see, by an example borrowed 

 from man's industry, how the physiological meth- 

 od of vital elements in no way excludes the hy- 

 pothesis of finality. Suppose a musical instru- 

 ment, of which we did not know the use, that 

 had nothing about it to inform us that it is a 

 work of human art. If any one, ignorant of its 

 true cause, should nevertheless suppose that it 

 was a machine arranged to serve the musician's 

 art, might we not say to him that that is a mere 

 superficial and popular explanation ; that the form 

 and use of the instrument are of no consequence ; 

 that analysis, reducing it to its anatomical ele- 

 ments, finds nothing in it but a collection of 

 strings, sticks, and ivory ; that every one of these 

 elements has certain essential immanent proper- 

 ties : the strings, for example, having that of 

 vibration, and having it in their smallest par- 

 ticles (their cells) ; the wood having the property 

 of returning sound ; the keys, in motion, having 

 the property of striking and defining sounds by 

 percussion, etc. Why should we be surprised, 

 we might say, that this machine can produce a 

 certain effect — for instance, can give a succession 

 of harmonious sounds to the ear — since, definitely, 

 the elements that make it up have the required 

 properties for producing such an effect? As to 

 the combination of those elements, it must be re- 

 ferred to lucky circumstances, which brought 

 about this result, so much like a preconceived 

 work. Who fails to see that, in reducing all this 

 complexity to its elements, and to their essential 

 properties, we have demonstrated nothing against 

 the finality of the instrument, because that, in 

 fact, dwells in the whole, and because it requires, 

 iu order to make the whole produce the proposed 

 effect, that its elements should possess the prop- 

 erties we recognize in them ? 



Men of science are generally too much in- 



clined to confound the doctrine of a final cause 

 with the hypothesis of an occult force acting 

 without physical means, like a deus ex machina. 

 These two hypotheses, far from being identical, 

 are in formal opposition, for he who says end says 

 means at the same time, and consequently speaks 

 of a cause fitted to produce such or such an ef- 

 fect. The search for this cause by no means 

 excludes the idea of the end ; but, on the con- 

 trary, brings into plain view the condition sine 

 qua non of the production of that end. To illus- 

 trate this distinction, let us cite an admirable ex- 

 ample taken from M. Bernard. How does it 

 occur, says this eminent physiologist, that the 

 gastric juice, which dissolves all aliments, does 

 not dissolve the stomach itself, which is exactly 

 of the same nature with the aliments it uses for 

 nourishment ? In this case, the explanation long 

 thought sufficient was that of vital force, mean- 

 ing an occult cause, which in some way could 

 suspend the properties of natural agents, so as 

 to hinder them from producing their necessary 

 effects. Vital force, then, by a sort of moral veto, 

 could forbid the gastric juice touching the stom- 

 ach. This, we see, would be a real miracle; but 

 nothing of the sort exists. The whole matter is 

 explained when we know that the stomach is lined 

 with a coating, or mucous membrane, insensible 

 to the action of the gastric juice, and protecting 

 the walls which its covers against that fluid. Who 

 does uot see that, in disproving the omnipotence 

 of vital force — far from weakening the principle 

 of finality — we give it powerful support ? What 

 could the most exquisite art have done to protect 

 the walls of the stomach other than to invent a 

 precaution just like that which really exists ? 

 And what a surprising coincidence, that an organ 

 designed to secrete and use an agent highly dan- 

 gerous to itself is found to be thoroughly armed 

 with a protecting coat, which must have always 

 coexisted with it, since otherwise it must have 

 been destroyed before it had time to develop this 

 defense for itself! — and thus the hypothesis of 

 long experiments and fortunate accidents is ex- 

 cluded. 



Final causes, then, do not exclude, on the 

 contrary they demand, physical causes ; and, re- 

 ciprocally, physical causes do not exclude, but 

 demand, final causes. This is what Leibnitz has 

 expressed in terms of singular precision. " It is 

 well," he says, "to reconcile those who believe 

 they can explain mechanically the formation of 

 the first tissue of an animal, and of the whole 

 machine of the parts, with those who account for 

 the same structure by final causes. Both are 



