i.l RADICAL FINALISM 43 



pie" of its own. An organism such as a higher vertebrate 

 is the most individuated of all organisms; yet, if we take 

 into account that it is only the development of an ovum 

 forming part of the body of its mother and of a spermato- 

 zoon belonging to the body of its father, that the egg 

 (i.e. the ovum fertilized) is a connecting link between the 

 two progenitors since it is common to their two sub- 

 stances, we shall realize that every individual organism, 

 even that of a man, is merely a bud that has sprouted on 

 the combined body of both its parents. Where, then, 

 does the vital principle of the individual begin or end? 

 Gradually we shall be carried further and further back, 

 up to the individual's remotest ancestors: we shall find 

 him solidary with each of them, solidary with that little 

 mass of protoplasmic jelly which is probably at the root 

 of the genealogical tree of life. Being, to a certain extent, 

 one with this primitive ancestor, he is also solidary with 

 all that descends from the ancestor in divergent directions. 

 In this sense each individual may be said to remain united 

 with the totality of living beings by invisible bonds. So 

 it is of no use to try to restrict finality to the individuality 

 of the living being. If there is finality in the world of life, it 

 includes the whole of life in a single indivisible embrace. 

 This life common to all the living undoubtedly presents 

 many gaps and incoherences, and again it is not so mathe- 

 matically one that it cannot allow each being to become 

 individualized to a certain degree. But it forms a single 

 whole, none the less; and we have to choose between the 

 out-and-out negation of finality and the hypothesis which 

 co-ordinates not only the parts of an organism with the 

 organism itself, but also each living being with the col- 

 lective whole of all others. 



Finality will not go down any easier for being taken 

 as a powder. Either the hypothesis of a finality im- 



