iv MECHANISM AND TELEOLOGY .319 



of causation. Now if we look at the purposive state as we 

 know it in ourselves, we say familiarly that it is guided by 

 an idea of the end and of the way and means thereto. This 

 idea is a forward-looking something ; its relation to the 

 future, to what is to come out of it, is an integral part of its 

 being. It is, we will not say, determined ab extra, but 

 constituted by this relation, this element of movement 

 which it contains. But the forward-looking idea is not the 

 whole of the purpose. The idea must interest, arouse 

 feeling, dominate impulse. The purposive state is an 

 impulse-idea, a conative state, an idee-force. It is forward 

 looking, but more than that. It is forward moving. 



But the direction of the forward movement is controlled, 

 point by point, by the idea of what is to come gut of it. 

 So far as the result is accurately forecast and on rational 

 grounds, the future itself in its relation to the present is a 

 true condition of the purposive state ; for, were it going 

 to be otherwise, the grounded forecast would be different, 

 and the purpose would differ accordingly. The relation of 

 present to future is then in a completely grounded tele- 

 ology, not, indeed, the whole cause, but a condition of the 

 act. But the actual course of the future may not be, and, 

 of course, in human action is not, fully known. What is 

 known is the tendency of the act, the result which it makes 

 for, its causal efficacy. The purposive state of our experi- 

 ence is a process moving under the control of the idea of its 

 own causal tendency. The tendency, that is, is the content 

 of an idea which is an element in the purposive state, and a 

 condition of its operation. Its tendency may thus be as 

 truly said to be the condition of its operation as the actual 

 course of the future is the condition of rationally grounded 

 and adequately constructed purpose. Generically then a 

 purpose may be defined as a cause conditioned in its opera- 

 tion by its own tendency. Its own causal efficacy, even 

 more than in the case of the means, is the condition of its 

 existence. It is essential to its constitution. Not the 

 result as an event which may happen to-morrow, next year, 

 perhaps never, but its own movement towards the result, 

 the conational movement that it initiates and sustains, is 

 integral and essential to its being. It is in this sense that 



