PREFACE xi 



the existence of an entelechy, that is, an internal perfecting 

 influence. 



This confession of failure is part of the essential honesty of 

 scientific thought. We recall the fact that our baffled state 

 of mind is by no means new, for in Kant's work of 1790, his 

 Methodical System of the Teleological Faculty of Judgment, he 

 divides all things in nature into the "inorganic," in which 

 natural causes prevail, and the "organic," in which the active 

 teleological (i. e., purposive) principle of adaptation is sup- 

 posed to prevail. There was in Kant's mind a cleft between 

 the domain of primeval matter and the domain of life, for in 

 the latter he assumes the presence of a supernatural principle, 

 of final causes acting toward definite ends. This view is ex- 

 pressed in his Teleological Faculty of Judgment as follows : 



"But he" (the archaeologist of Nature) "must for this end 

 ascribe to the common mother an organization ordained pur- 

 posely with a view to the needs of all her offspring, otherwise 

 the possibility of suitability of form in the products of the 

 animal and vegetable kingdoms cannot be conceived at all."^ 



"It is cjuite certain that we cannot become sufficiently 

 acquainted with organized creatures and their hidden poten- 

 tialities by aid of purely mechanical natural principles; much 

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

 boldl}' assert that it is absurd for man even to conceive such 

 an idea, or to hope that a Newton may one day arise able to 

 make the production of a blade of grass comprehensible, ac- 

 cording to natural laws ordained by no intention; such an 

 insight we must absolutely deny to man."- 



For a long period after The Origin of Species appeared, 

 Haeckel and many others believed that Darwin had arisen 

 as the Newton for whom Kant did not dare to hope; but no 



' Kant, Emmanuel, 1790, § 79. -Ibid., § 74. 



