322 DEVELOPMENT AND PURPOSE CHAP. 



not proved that there is no other possibility of explaining 

 them, though we have as yet seen no other way. Nor have 

 we determined what is perhaps a prior question, viz. 

 whether collocations need any explanation at all beyond that 

 which consists in reference to an antecedent collocation, and 

 so ad infinitum. The answer to these questions will deter- 

 mine the range of teleological explanation, and will be 

 attempted in the next chapter. But (2) meanwhile in 

 certain cases there is another method of approach. In 

 certain cases the intrinsic character of the process sug- 

 gests a teleological explanation. Are we able by any 

 sufficient evidence directly to confirm or refute the sug- 

 gestion? The cases in question are the operation of our 

 own minds, and the action of living beings generally. 

 Can we establish purposive action in these cases? If we 

 are satisfied that purposive action is possible, this will be 

 in effect to ask whether we can refute the suggestion that 

 the purpose which figures to our fancy as a cause is in reality 

 a mere epi-phenomenon, an attendant aspect of a causal 

 process which is at bottom always mechanical. 



12. For the behaviour of the living organism there are, 

 in fact, three possible explanations. The first conceives it 

 as a mechanism adjusted by a supernatural intelligence to 

 respond to its environment in accordance with its needs. 

 This endowment is to explain all the lower forms of animal 

 behaviour, all that we have hinted at under the phrase 

 c organic adaptability,' together with reflex actions and 

 probably c instinct.' In addition, the same higher intelli- 

 gence has endowed the human animal with a soul, and the 

 higher brutes with a certain undefined measure of intelli- 

 gence, to which their more distinctively purposive actions 

 may be referred. Towards this soul or this intelligence 

 the bodily instrument stands in the relation of a 

 mechanism. It is not part of the mind, nor the mind 

 part of it, but the two act and react. So far there is a 

 clear-cut distinction, not so much between the teleological 

 and the mechanical as between mind and matter. Matter 

 never serves a purpose except when wrought into a 

 systematic arrangement by a mind external to it, be the 



