THE PROBLEM OF FINAL CAUSES. 



SSI 



boy who preferred play to his work, and contrived 

 some arrangement or other of strings to take the 

 place of his presence and oversight, and the in- 

 vention was afterward made useful. That was a 

 chance, it will be said ; but certainly not, for it 

 required some intelligence to invent the contriv- 

 ance, and some again to remark and copy it. 

 Throw into a pot at random the elements a ma- 

 chine is made of, and let them oscillate indefi- 

 nitely "between monstrosities and death" — that 

 is. between useless forms and chaos — and they will 

 keep oscillating for eternity, without ever set- 

 tling into any regular form, or producing even the 

 semblance of a machine. 



M. Robin next goes on to the explanation of the 

 phenomenon of adaptation in the organs, and he 

 explains it by the following facts : the subdivision 

 and individualization of the anatomical elements, 

 engendered by each other and their configuration, 

 whence the situation they assume in reference to 

 each other ensues — the evolution they are sub- 

 jected to, no organ being at first what it will later 

 become, and the successive appearance of cells, 

 tissues, organs, apparatuses, and systems — the 

 original consubstantiality of all the vital proper- 

 ties, which being immanent in all organized mat- 

 ter are found again in all the transformations of 

 that matter — the molecular renovation by way of 

 nutrition and of the action of the external or 

 internal medium, whence an adjustment to this 

 twofold medium inevitably follows — and, last, the 

 contiguity and continuity of living tissues, whence 

 springs the marvelous consensus observed in the an- 

 imal organization. Such are the principal causes 

 which explain, in M. Robin's view, the adaptation 

 of organs to functions — causes, be it noted, which 

 we have picked up here and there in his book, for 

 he appeals sometimes to one and sometimes to an- 

 other, without coordinating them with systematic 

 regularity. 



All those causes may be reduced to two main 

 ones : on one hand, the individualization or spe- 

 cialization of the anatomical elements with a dis- 

 tribution rigorously determined by their struct- 

 ure, which cause explains the diversity of organs, 

 and thence the diversity of functions ; and, on the 

 other hand, the contiguity of living tissues, whence 

 arises the consensus or harmony of the general 

 organism. The other causes are there to swell 

 the account : some are useless, and explain noth- 

 ing ; others are the very fact that asks explana- 

 tion. In truth, molecular renovation or nutrition 

 only serves for the preservation of the organs, 

 but does not explain their formation and adapta- 

 tion ; so too the action of the internal or external 



medium only serves to limit and circumscribe the 

 organic possibilities and gives no account of the 

 combinations determined. As to the evolution 

 of the organs that are never at first what they 

 will later become, as to the successive appearance 

 of the elements, tissues, organs, apparatuses, and 

 systems, that is exactly the fact that needs to be 

 explained. We know well enough that the or- 

 ganism, in its development, passes from simple 

 to complex. How this complexity, instead of 

 becoming a chaos, distributes itself into regular 

 systems, coordinated and adapted, is precisely 

 the question to be cleared up. And, last, con- 

 substantiality and immanence of vital properties 

 explains very well that all the organs are en- 

 dowed with life, and that they possess such prop- 

 erties potentially, but it does not explain how 

 they divide and combine into special organs. 

 There remain then, I repeat, the two causes that 

 we have pointed out. 



If, now, we endeavor to form a philosophic 

 judgment of the two causes indicated by M. Ro- 

 bin, we shall see that, they come back to the 

 statement that succession explains adaptation, 

 and contiguity accounts for harmony. The per- 

 severing substitution of relations of space and 

 time for intelligible and harmonious relations is 

 the characteristic of positive science ; an entire- 

 ly legitimate task, we admit, if it carefully keeps 

 within those limits, but a usurping one, if it as- 

 sumes to set them as bounds to the range of 

 man's thought. It is of the nature of the human 

 mind, gifted with sensibility, not to conceive 

 things merely as figured by symbols of space and 

 time ; those are the material conditions of all 

 thought, and it is the object of science to fix 

 those definitely : but it remains to be seen wheth- 

 er thought is not quite another thing, and wheth- 

 er its proper object is not precisely that which is 

 not represented by space and time. 



Thus the learned physiologist whose ideas we 

 are presenting shows us the anatomical elements 

 springing from each other, with their particular 

 configurations, and grouping themselves as they 

 come forth in a certain manner by reason of 

 their structure. " From such a structure," he 

 says, "there must flow a series of determined 

 acts." Now, it is quite true that the formation 

 of an organ cannot be conceived of without the 

 appearance successively of special elements, 

 shaped in a certain way ; but determined does 

 not mean adapted, and it still remains to be 

 known how those determined acts are exactly 

 the suitable ones, and are not others. We do 

 not solve the difficulty by saying that if they 



