i RADICAL FINALISM 41 



lay, potentially, in the cosmic vapour, and that a 

 sufficient intellect could, from a knowledge of the 

 properties of the molecules of that vapour, have 

 predicted, say the state of the Fauna of Great Britain 

 in 1869, with as much certainty as one can say what 

 will happen to the vapour of the breath on a cold 

 winter s day.&quot; In such a doctrine, time is still spoken 

 of : one pronounces the word, but one does not think 

 of the thing. For time is here deprived of efficacy, and 

 if it does nothing, it is nothing. Radical mechanism^ 

 implies a metaphysj^ mjvdikJ^ 



is postulated complete in eternity, and in which the 

 apparent duration of things expresses merely the 

 infirmity of a mind that cannot know everything at 

 once. But duration is something very different from 

 this for our consciousness, that is to say, for that which 

 is most indisputable in our experience. We perceive 

 duration as a stream against which we cannot go. It 

 is the foundation of our being, and, as we feel, the 

 very substance of the world in which we live. It is of 

 no use to hold up before our eyes the dazzling pros 

 pect of a universal mathematic ; we cannot sacrifice 

 experience to the requirements of a system. That is 

 why we reject radical mechanism. 



But radical finalism is quite as unacceptable, and for 

 the same reason. The doctrine of teleology, in its 

 extreme form, as we find it in Leibniz for example, im 

 plies that things and beings merely realize a programme 

 previously arranged. But if there is nothing unfore 

 seen, no invention or creation in the universe, time is 

 useless again. As in the mechanistic hypothesis, here 

 again it is supposed that all is given. Finalism thus 

 understood is only inverted mechanism. It springs 



