274 CRITIQUES AND ADDRESSES. [xi 



would be the one who should maintain that the sole 

 thing death-watches could be sure about was the nature 

 of the clock-works and the way they move ; and that 

 the purpose of the clock lay wholly beyond the purview 

 of beetle faculties. 



Substitute " cosmic vapour " for " clock," and " mole- 

 cules " for " works," and the application of the argument 

 is obvious. The teleological and the mechanical views 

 of nature are not, necessarily, mutually exclusive. On 

 the contrary, the more purely a mechanist the speculator 

 is, the more firmly does he assume a primordial mole- 

 cular arrangement, of which all the phenomena of the 

 universe are the consequences ; and the more completely 

 is he thereby at the mercy of the teleologist, who can 

 always defy him to disprove that this primordial mole- 

 cular arrangement was not intended to evolve the phe- 

 nomena of the universe. On the other hand, if the 

 teleologist assert that this, that, or the other result of 

 the working of any part of the mechanism of the 

 universe is its purpose and final cause, the mechanist 

 can always inquire how he knows that it is more than 

 an unessential incident the mere ticking of the clock, 

 which he mistakes for its function. And there seems to 

 be no reply to this inquiry, any more than to the fur- 

 ther, not irrational, question, why trouble oneself about 

 matters which are out of reach, when the working of 

 the mechanism itself, which is of infinite practical 

 importance, affords scope for all our energies \ 



Professor Haeckel has invented a new and convenient 

 name, " Dysteleology," for the study of the " purpose- 

 lessnesses" which are observable in living organisms 

 such as the multitudinous cases of rudimentary and 

 apparently useless structures. I confess, however, that 

 it has often appeared to me that the facts of Dysteleo- 

 logy cut two ways. If we are to assume, as evolutionists 



