CHAP. VIII.] LIKENES8EB IN ANIMALS AND PLANTS. 



facts, to recognise in each organism as a whole (which is 

 visibly a unity) an innate power, tending to development 

 of a special kind, though the actual results of the develop 

 ing force must be modified by the external conditions 

 which happen to exist in each case during the process of 

 development. 



Amongst the results of the recognition of such innate 

 powers and tendencies are an increased support to Teleology 

 and a rehabilitation of &quot; Philosophical Anatomy.&quot; With 

 such recognition, indeed, it is much less difficult than with 

 out it, to conceive (if &quot; purpose &quot; in nature be recognised at 

 all) that results which become manifest only at last, and 

 after complex changes which do not seem to foreshadow them, 

 may have been latent and pre-ordained from the first. 



When &quot; Philosophical Anatomy &quot; fell in general esteem, 

 in the manner already related, it did not fall alone. 



* 



Teleology, or the doctrine of final causes, had been 

 a favourite subject with Professor Owen ; and with Tele 

 ology, the doctrine of evolution appeared to many to wage a 

 battle a outranee. It was not that this or that explanation 

 was disputed ; but the whole conception fell into utter dis- 

 esteern, and the &quot; purposelessness &quot; of the organic world 

 became with some persons almost an article of faith, as it 

 has come to ibrm a special branch of study, with its proper 

 scientific title of &quot; dysteleology.&quot; 



This materialistic and atheistic spirit of negation has been, 

 however, modified, and seems destined to be more affected 

 hereafter, by that very study which at first came so aptly to 

 its aid. 



The further prosecution of embryological research, so fatal 

 to &quot; Philosophical Anatomy &quot; in its earlier form, is calculated 

 to have this anti-materialistic effect. The mazy complexity 

 of developmental changes, the half-revealed affinities, thus 

 seen to radiate in all directions, have convinced more than 

 one of our most eminent observers that no series of hap 

 hazard changes m thus offered to their ken, but that they 

 have before them the evidences of an orderly and predeter- 



