74 COMTE TO BENJAMIN KIDD PART n 



seriously applied to the cosmic process. Yet its logical 

 possibility is pressed upon us by so distinguished a man 

 of science, philosopher, and theist as Hermann Lotze. 

 " With reference to the past, we are at liberty to assume 

 that at first an innumerable multitude of inharmonious 

 forms, intrinsically hostile to any end, actually emerged 

 from the reciprocal impact of blind elements ; that these 

 forms, however, were not able to maintain themselves 

 in the course of nature, as against the contrary assaults 

 from without ; that on the contrary only those few held 

 out which had chanced to be the more fortunate ; that 

 then these fortunate ones exerted more and more a 

 determining influence upon the rest ; and that thus 

 gradually it has come to pass that nature runs its course, 

 not indeed in complete and perfect conformity to an end, 

 but after all to such an extent that there still remain 

 but few disturbances or interferences by which the 

 development and perpetuation of the structures that are 

 conformable to an end is endangered. In this way, 

 therefore, it would not be unthinkable that an original 

 chaos gradually shaped itself into a nature that is 

 arranged in conformity to ends." 1 Moreover, the postu- 

 late underlying such a view in Lotze's opinion, of 

 course, a mere logical abstract possibility ; in no wise a 

 fact is given on the previous page : " If we take for 

 granted that an indefinite multitude of different elements 

 act upon one another entirely in accordance with 

 mechanical laws, and that they were aboriginally in 

 reciprocal motions, which were not regulated by any 

 design." This postulate, named by Lotze only that he 

 may presently dismiss it as metaphysically untenable, 2 is 



1 Outlines of Philosophy of Religion, tr. p. 20. 



2 The many elements reducing themselves to elements in one great 

 system ; the separate processes to one many-sided evolution. 



