KANTS BIOLOGICAL THEORIES. IO3 



Some passages are, however, very remarkable, in which 

 Kant in a surprising manner deviates from this mode of 

 viewing things, and expresses, more or less distinctly, the 

 fundamental idea of the Theory of Descent. He even as- 

 serts the necessity of a genealogical conception of the series 

 of organisms, if we at all wish to understand it scien- 

 tifically. The most important and remarkable of these pas- 

 sages occurs in his " Methodical System of the Teleological 

 Faculty of Judgment " (§ 79), which appeared in 1790 in the 

 " Criticism of the Faculty of Judgment." Considering the 

 extraordinary interest which this passage possesses, both for 

 forming a correct estimate of Kant's philosophy, as well as 

 for the Theory of Descent, I shall here insert it verhatim. 



" It is desirable to examine the great domain of organized 

 nature by means of a methodical comparative anatomy, in 

 order to discover whether we may not find in it something 

 resembling a system, and that too in connection with the 

 mode of generation, so that we may no longer be compelled 

 to stop short with a mere consideration of forms as they are 

 — which gives us no insight into their generation — and need 

 no longer give up in despair all hope of gaining a full insight 

 into this department of nature. The agreement of so many 

 kinds of animals in a certain common plan of structure, which 

 seems to be visible not only in their skeletons, but also in the 

 arrangement of the remaining parts — so that a wonderfully 

 simple typical form, by the shortening and lengthening of 

 some parts, and by the suppression and development of 

 others, might be able to produce an immense variety of 

 species — gives us a ray of hope, though feeble, that here 

 perhaps some result may be obtained, by the application of 

 the principle of the mechanism of nature, without which. 



