I06 THE HISTOEY OF CREATION. 



the heading of the remarkable § 79, which contains the two 

 contradictory passages cited : " Of the Necessary Suhordinar- 

 tion of the Mechanical to the Teleological FrineiiDle, in the 

 explanation of a thing as a lourpose or object of Nature." 



He expresses himself most decidedly against the mechanical 

 explanation of organic nature in the following passage 

 (§ 74) : "It is quite certain that we cannot become sufficiently 

 acquainted with organized creatures and their hidden 

 potentialities by aid of purely mechanical natural principles, 

 much less can we explain them ; and this is so certain, that 

 we may boldly assert that it is absurd for man even to con- 

 ceive such an idea, or to hope that a Newton may one day 

 arise able to make the production of a blade of grass com- 

 prehensible, according to natural laws ordained by no inten- 

 tion; such an insight we must absolutely deny to man." 

 Now, however, this impossible Newton has really appeared 

 seventy years later in Darwin, whose Theory of Selection 

 has actually solved the problem, the solution of which 

 Kant had considered absolutely inconceivable ! 



In connection with Kant and the German philosoj^hers 

 whose theories of development have already occupied us in 

 the preceding chapter, it seems justifiable to consider briefly 

 some other German naturalists and philosophers, who, in the 

 course of our century, have more or less distinctly resisted 

 the prevailing teleological views of creation, and vindicated 

 the mechanical conception of things which is the basis of 

 the Doctrine of Filiation. Sometimes general philosophical 

 considerations, sometimes special emj^irical observations, 

 were the motives which led these thinking men to form the 

 idea that the various individiial species of organisms must 

 have originated from common primary forms. Among them 



