ON THE VITALISTIC VIEW OF NATURE. 411 



naturalist may neglect it, or at best can only use it as an 

 " heuristic " help, as an indication where to look for the 

 special mechanical contrivances which he is trying to 

 unravel. It seems to me that the position which such 

 thinkers take up towards the objects or individuals of 

 living nature is similar to that of a mathematical student 

 who clearly comprehends the solution of an algebraical 

 problem, but who himself would be unable to find it. 

 He may all his life remain in this attitude without being 

 able to find any solution himself : he has got complete 

 hold of the mechanism, but not of the idea, of mathe- 

 matical reasoning. The student of nature could thus 

 hope eventually to understand the mechanism of life, but 

 the idea is beyond his comprehension. This can be ex- 

 pressed by saying : the mechanism of life is ultimately 

 comprehensible, though highly intricate ; the idea of life 

 is transcendental, incomprehensible. Let us not trouble 

 ourselves about the manner in which life first originated, 

 but let us study the mechanical processes by which it is 

 maintained, by which its various ends are accomplished. 

 Let us study the mechanism of the clock, though this- 

 may not tell us the story of its maker nor the process 

 of its manufacture. Those who cling to the conception 

 of a vital force or principle would probably not even 

 admit as much as this. It is doubtful whether Liebig 

 to the end, whether Huxley in his earlier period, and 

 Du Bois-Eeymond in his later writings, would have 

 admitted even this position. 



We are now prepared to understand the novel position 26. 



Darwinism 



which the Darwinian conception of natural processes and final 



causes. 



introduced so far as the teleology of nature is concerned, 



