ORGANIC NATURE'S RIDDLE. 



MONGST the many sagacious sayings of the patient and 

 profound thinkers of Germany, not the least noteworthy 

 ''as ScheUing's affirmation that the phenomena of instinct are 

 some of the most important of all phenomena, and capable 

 of serving as a very touchstone whereby the value of com- 

 peting theories of the universe may be effectually tested. 

 His prescience has been justified by our experience. The 

 greatest scientific event of the present time is the wide ac- 

 ceptance of the theory of Evolution, and its use as a weapon 

 of offence and defence. It is used both against the belief 

 that intelligent purpose is, as it were, incarnate in the living 

 world about us, and also in favour of a merely mechanical 

 theory of nature. Now it would be difficult to find a more 

 searching test of that theory's truth than is supplied by a 

 careful study of instinct. The essence of that view of nature 

 which is associated with the name of Professor Haeckel,^ con- 

 sists in a negation of the doctrine of final causes and an asser- 

 tion of what he calls ' Dysteleology,' — that is, the doctrine of 

 the purposelessness of the organs and organisms which people 

 a purposeless planet.^ That doctrine may be called the gospel 

 of the irrationality of the universe, and it is a doctrine to 



^ It is often associated unfairly with the illustrious name of the late Mr. 

 Darwin. His special views lend themselves indeed to Haeckelianism, and 

 have been pressed into its service ; yet they are by no means to be identified 

 therewith. 



2 See ante, p. 208. 



