iv MECHANISM AND TELEOLOGY 327 



objects in a field of magnetic force, there will be a rearrange- 

 ment of those objects in which the direct effects of the 

 impact will be compounded with the governing conditions 

 of the magnetic tension. When one element of the 

 nervous system is affected by an external force, there will 

 be a redistribution of the molecules within the system, 

 regulated by the tensions of the system. Only these ten- 

 sions are of a peculiar character. They bring to bear on 

 the action of each element not only the existing condition 

 of the whole, but its moving processes, what it has in it to 

 become or bring about, its causal tendency. Such a ten- 

 sion is teleological, not mechanical, but it furthers, corrects 

 or guides the motions of physical elements in the system to 

 which it belongs, just as the magnetic or any other 

 mechanical tension might do. Moreover, on its psychical 

 as on its physical side the psycho-physical whole grows out 

 of its antecedents just as any other configuration, only that 

 in the action of its antecedents, the teleological condition 

 will always have been operating. There is then no breach 

 of continuity in teleological action, though there is involved 

 the operation of conditions which are not those of a purely 

 mechanical system. 



13. One further point remains. We have considered 

 here only those cases of fully developed purpose, in which 

 the idea of the end and of the tendency of the act towards 

 the end is the condition of its operation. Our definition of 

 purposive activity was drawn from these cases. But the 

 definition would, in fact, include any act in which there is 

 any element through which the causal tendency may 

 operate. The question whether sensori-motor impulses or 

 any lower kinds of organic activity are purposive then 

 depends on the question whether they contain any such 

 controlling conditions. Inductive methods suggest that 

 they must do so, because such activities do vary in accord- 

 ance with their tendencies to produce certain suitable 

 results while maintaining themselves under varying condi- 

 tions in the form which yields those results. From this we 

 infer that the tendency to the result is a condition of the 

 act, though we may not be able to identify the element 



