FINAL CAUSES 137 



SO complete a contrast to the powerlessness of human 

 works of art to repair an injury. 



Rudimentary organs, so abundant in Nature including 

 man himself, difficult as they are to reconcile with any 

 argument of direct design, are discussed by M. Janet 

 with ability, and are considered by him as affording no 

 objection to finality — rather the reverse ; for they were 

 of use formerly, but have become rudimentary through 

 disuse, other uses having superseded them. " Nothing 

 conforms more to the theory of finality than the gradual 

 disappearance of useless complications," 



Lastly, the production of monsters calls for some 

 attention as bearing upon finality. 



The existence of monsters raises no great problem 

 when we consider the relatively perfect state in which 

 every organism finds its existence to be ; or what I have 

 called " Inideality" (see Part II, Chap. X). 



Were every environment absolutely and perfectly 

 adapted to a being's welfare, and were every condition 

 for the development of a perfect being secured to the 

 parents, then monsters would be impossible. Since, 

 however, under existing circumstances, such a Utopian 

 idea cannot be realised, monsters and abnormal growths 

 of all kinds, as well as diseases, are simply the outcome 

 of the clash of accidentally conflicting forces. They are 

 "errors of Nature," caused, as M. Janet observes, "by 

 the predominance of the laws of Nature in general over 

 the interests of living Nature ". This was Plato's view, 

 and Aristotle explained evil in the same way. And \{ 

 men would but clearly distinguish between moral evil {i.e., 

 conscious abuse of Nature's laws) and physical evil {i.e., the 

 production of effects which man — chiefly — dislikes), there 

 would not have been so many attempts to prove a separate 

 author of "evil " from that of "good " in the world. 



