212 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



It was immediately after tlie publication of the " Origin of 

 Species " that Darwin set abont his work on orchids, in which, 

 more than in any other of his writings, the notion of purpose is 

 prominent ; and some ten years later we find him gladly recog- 

 nizing the inherently teleological character of evolution, which 

 had been pointed out in a review by Dr. Asa Gray. Dr. Gray 

 had written : 



Let us recognize Darwin's great service to natural science in bringing back to 

 it teleology ; so that instead of morphology versus teleology, we shall have mor- 

 phology wedded to teleology. 



Darwin writes back : 



What you say about teleology pleases me especially, and I do not think any 

 one else had ever noticed the point. I have always said you were the man to 

 hit the nail on the head.* 



Here we are brought face to face with the paradox which had 

 been puzzling Darwin. The theory, which destroyed Paley's doc- 

 trine of design, or the old teleological doctrine, unconsciously 

 introduced a new teleology. And the gradual recognition of 

 this new fact is alike curious and instructive. In 1864, when the 

 " Origin of Species " had been four years, and the " Fertilization 

 of Orchids " two years, before the world, Prof. Kolliker, an ad- 

 vanced evolutionist, and a strong opponent of final causes, ac- 

 cuses Darwin of being " in the fullest sense of the word a teleolo- 

 gist," and adds that " the teleological general conception adopted 

 by Darwin is a mistaken one." f Prof. Huxley answers Kolliker, 

 and, in defending Darwin, is driven to distinguish between the 

 teleology of Paley and the teleology of evolution. Two years 

 later, in 18G6, appeared the Duke of Argyll's " Reign of Law," 

 in which Darwinism was claimed on the side of the doctrine of 

 design ; and the next year Huxley, again in criticising a German 

 professor, Haeckel, and his repudiation of teleology, published 

 the remarkable review, some pages from which reappear in the 

 chapter he contributes to Darwin's " Life and Letters, " J and 

 which has more than once been quoted in this connection : 



The doctrine of evolution [he says] is the most formidable opponent of all 

 the commoner and coarser forms of teleology. But perhaps the most remark- 

 able service to the philosophy of biology rendered by Mr. Darwin is the recon- 

 ciliation of teleology and morphology, and the explanation of the facts of both, 

 which his views ofter. The teleology which supposes that the eye, such as we 

 see it in man or one of the higher vertebrata, was made with the precise struct- 

 ure it exhibits, for the purpose of enabling the animal which possesses it to see, 

 has undoubtedly received its death-blow. Nevertheless, it is necessary to remem- 

 ber that there is a wider teleology which is not touched by the doctrine of evo- 

 lution, but is actually based upon the fundamental proposition of evolution.* 



* " Life and Letters," ii, p. 367. \ Quoted ia " Lay Sermons," pp. 329, 330. 



X i, p. 554. * "Critiques and Addresses," p. 305. 



