Mechanism, Vitalism, and Teleology 373 



originated in or through mechanism, but it is a necessary and 

 preestablished associate of mechanism. Matter and energy 

 have 'an original property, assuredly not by chance, which 

 organizes the universe in space and time." 1 



These important philosophical conclusions supplement but 

 do not destroy a mechanistic interpretation of nature. If 

 the chemical and physical characteristics of the environment 

 had been very different from what they are, life as we know 

 it could not have existed on the earth, just as it is probable 

 that life does not exist on the moon because of the absence 

 of water and of an atmosphere. It does not necessarily fol- 

 low that the environment was made as it is for the purpose 

 of supporting life, or that prospective life was a cause of 

 antecedent environment, but it is impossible to reflect upon 

 this fitness of the environment and indeed the whole order 

 of nature without recognizing our inability to explain finally 

 such phenomena on purely mechanistic grounds. 



This conception of a general teleological principle run- 

 ning through all nature differs from vitalism in that it rec- 

 ognizes no world-wide distinction between the organic and 

 the inorganic; both of these belong to the same universe; 

 in both mechanism is universal, and so also is teleology. 

 Here is common ground upon which mechanists, vitalists, 

 and religionists may take their stand; for the thing which 

 mechanists desire to prove is not the absence of teleology 

 but the universal presence of mechanism, while the proposi- 

 tion which defenders of vitalism and of religion are con- 

 cerned to prove is not the absence of mechanism but the 

 presence of teleology. 



Some of the most profound students of nature from the 

 ancient Greeks to the present time have thought it necessary 

 to assume some initial teleological principle. Weismann, 



^'The Fitness of the Environment," pp. 307, 308. 



