ON THE VITALISTIC VIEW OF NATURE. 407 



In order to enable my readers to comprehend clearly 

 the great change which has come over biological thought 

 through Darwin's writings and reasonings, I must now 

 introduce an idea which I have so far intentionally 

 avoided in discussing the various scientific views of 

 nature. This is the idea of final causes, the apparent 

 existence of a purpose (in German Zweck), or an end 

 (in German Ziel) in all processes of nature, but pre- 

 eminently in those of the living portion of creation. In 

 all writings prior to Darwin a great deal is made of 

 final causes in nature, of the teleology of living processes. 

 The phenomena of life seemed safely intrenched in the 

 citadel of final causes : no mechanism could explain 

 them away. The very fact that organisms were com- 

 pared with machines, admitted the existence of a definite 

 end and purpose; for it is the peculiarity of every 

 humanly constructed machine or instrument that it 

 serves a definite purpose which, in the mind of the 

 inventor or maker, suggested the peculiar arrangement or 

 organisation which we behold. The criticisms of Lotze l 



ches,' &c. : " Les esprits seVeres et 

 amis des progres des sciences . . . 

 ont regrette que 1'auteur opposat 

 sans cesse la vie aux lois physiques, 

 comme si les etres vivans n'(5taient 

 pas de corps, avant d'etre des vege"- 

 taux ou des auimaux " ("avertisse- 

 ment " to the 4th ed. of Bichat's 

 ' Recherches,' &c., 1822). 



1 The lengthy discussions of Lotze 

 contained in the writings quoted 

 above are not easy to understand, 

 and it is not surprising that, be- 

 yond the elimination of the con- 

 ception of vital force as useless to 

 the purely scientific student, hia 

 real meaning was at the time not 

 grasped at all. In fact, we may 



say that Lotze, though ceasing to 

 be a vitalist, remained an animist. 

 Discarding vital force, he retained 

 the conception of a soul in a 

 manner which drew upon him the 

 ridicule of those whom, like Carl 

 Vogt, he had converted to pure 

 materialism. This has had the 

 consequence, that in more recent 

 times his whole philosophy has 

 been stigmatised as dualistic, and 

 that he has been accused of having 

 halted half-way. His real meaning 

 can be gathered more easily from 

 his later and more mature writ- 

 ings : for his contemporaries it 

 must have remained to a great 

 extent enigmatical. See C. Haupt- 



