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TEE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



stone should potentially contain the whole com- 

 plete house — that is to say, should be inhabited 

 by a kind of unseen architect, who should direct 

 all the rest from this first starting-point. We 

 may give up the theory of preformation then 

 without therefore giving up finality. Still fur- 

 ther, it rather seems that the doctrine of preforma- 

 tion would go to exclude finality, for, if an organ- 

 ism iu miniature is given, I might in strictness un- 

 derstand that increase and enlargement would oc- 

 cur by purely mechanical laws ; but what I do not 

 understand is this, that a juxtaposition or addi- 

 tion of parts, which represents only relations be- 

 tween the elements and external media, is found 

 to have produced, little by little, a work that I 

 should call a work of art if a Vaucanson had 

 made it, and a work infinitely more complicated 

 and delicate than one of Vaucanson's automata. 

 Doubtless, even in the hypothesis of preformation, 

 there is always the need of explaining the type 

 contained in the germ ; but for the same reason 

 there is the need of explaining the type realized 

 by the whole organism, and it makes no differ- 

 ence whether it is preformed or not, the problem 

 remains still the same. On the supposition of 

 preformation, the type appears formed all at 

 once ; in that of epigenesis, it gets formed piece- 

 meal: but the fact that a work of art is formed 

 piecemeal (a fact depending on the law of time, 

 the law that controls all temporal and perishable 

 things) by no means involves the consequence 

 that it is not a work of art. Gradual evolution 

 demands a guiding and creating idea no less than 

 a sudden bursting out of the whole does, suppos- 

 ing that such sudden breaking out is possible. 

 Thus, to give us the right to say, with M. Claude 

 Bernard, that a guiding and creating idea pre- 

 sides over the organism, and to say, with Miiller 

 and Kant, that the whole rules and conditions 

 the parts, we do not at all need that this creative 

 idea should b3 limned in advance to percipient 

 eyes, in the primal kernel of the future being. 

 Because I do not see the plan of a house before- 

 hand, it does not follow that there is no plan. In 

 a picture painted by an artist, the early linea- 

 ments or the faint touches do not contain the 

 complete picture — they are not its preformation ; 

 and yet in this case it is surely the idea of the 

 whole which determines the appearance of these 

 first parts. Just so the idea may be immanent in 

 the w r hole organism without being exclusively 

 present in the egg or the germ, as if the initial 

 point of the organization could have a claim to be 

 more privileged in this respect than the other 

 parts of the organism. 



As to the difficulty inferred from deviations of 

 the germ, it could only be a decisive objection to 

 finality if the organism were presented as an ab- 

 solute whole, without any relation to the rest of 

 the universe, as an empire in an empire— impe- 

 rium in imperio, as Spinoza has said. In such a 

 case only would the doctrine of finality meet a 

 contradiction in the fact that actions and reac- 

 tions of the medium could cause deviations in 

 that absolute whole. But the organism is only 

 relatively a whole ; the proof is, that it is not 

 self-sufficing, and is necessarily connected with 

 an external medium : therefore the modifications 

 of this medium cannot fail to act upon it, and if 

 they can act during the course of its growth, 

 there is no reason why they should not equally 

 act while it is yet in the condition of a germ. 

 Thence result primordial deviations, while the 

 changes that take place later are only secondary, 

 and if monstrosities continue to develop as well 

 as normal beings, it is because the laws of organ- 

 ized matter continue their action when they are 

 accidentally made to swerve from their end, just 

 as a stone that is thrown changes its direction on 

 meeting an obstacle, yet pursues its flight in vir- 

 tue of the velocity at first acquired. 



The real problem for the thinker is, not that 

 monsters exist, but that living beings exist; just 

 as I am astonished, not that there are madmen, 

 but that every man is not born a madman, if the 

 work of constructing a thinking brain is aban- 

 doned to matter which does not think. " They 

 would not live," it is objected, " if they were born 

 madmen." Then, I ask, how does it occur that 

 men do live at all, even sane ones ? The germ 

 wavers, they tell us, between monstrosities and 

 death. Waver as it may, it yet does become fixed, 

 for life triumphs over death, because species en- 

 dure, and, from one oscillation to another, Nature 

 has attained the creation of the human machine, 

 which in its turn creates so many other machines. 

 Can the groping of blind Nature by any possibil- 

 ity go so far ? Even among men experiments 

 succeed in producing definite effects and making 

 the most of lucky chances only on condition that 

 they are led and limited by intelligence. Thus, for 

 instance, empiricism and not science has discov- 

 ered the greater part of our industrial processes 

 in former ages. It was a series of lucky chances, 

 if you will, and not reflecting art systematically 

 guided, that led to such results ; still, at least 

 intelligence was needed to observe these lucky 

 chances, and reproduce them at will. It is said 

 that one of the most striking improvements in the 

 steam-engine resulted from the heedlessness of a 



