THE EVOLUTION IDEA 149 



It is quite certain that wc cannot become suf- 

 ficiently acquainted with organized creatures and 

 their hidden potentialities by aid of purely mechani- 

 cal natural principles, much less can we explain 

 them ; and this is so certain, that we may boldly as- 

 sert that it is absurd for man even to conceive such 

 an idea, or to hope that a Newton may one day arise 

 able to make the production of a blade of grass com- 

 prehensible, according to natural laws ordained by 

 no intention ; such an insight we must absolutely deny 

 to man. 



As Haeckel observes, Darwin rose up as 

 Kant's Newton, for he offered an explanation 

 of the production and of the development of 

 those very structures and adaptations in Nature, 

 which remained wholly unexplained until 1858. 

 Haeckel expresses evident disappointment at 

 Kant's position; yet this position may be re- 

 garded as raising Kant higher in the scale of 

 science, if not of philosophy. If he could not 

 even conceive of any natural law whereby these 

 beautiful adaptations of Nature could be ex- 

 plained, he was not justified in making a bold 

 assumption of the existence of such a law. The 

 feeling that Newton and other physical philoso- 

 phers had supplied the inorganic world with its 

 regulating principles would have made it logical 

 for Kant, like Descartes, to carry his reasoning 

 a step further into the world of life. But his logic 



