RELATION OF TELEOLOGY TO MECHANISM. 205 



by science, and does not indulge in random specu- 

 lation. It is only from a knowledge of the tend- 

 encies of things in the past that we are able to 

 predict their future : it is by a study of what has 

 been that we discover what is to be, both in the 

 sense of what is about to, and of what ought to, 

 be. The process which the theory of Evolution 

 divined the history of the world to be, must have 

 its content and meaning determined from the basis 

 of the scientific data ; it is only by a careful study 

 of the history of a thing that we can determine 

 the direction of its development, and discover the 

 general principle which formulates its evolution. 

 And it is only when we have discovered a formula 

 holding good of all things that we can be said to 

 have made the first approximation to the knowledge 

 of the End {r&koi) of the world-process. 



Thus the new teleology would not be capricious 

 or random in its application, but firmly rooted in the 

 conclusions of the sciences, on which it would be 

 based and by which it would be regulated. It would 

 stand in definite and recognized relations to the 

 methods of the sciences, and would share in and 

 stimulate their growth. 



§ 22. The only danger to be guarded against, 

 when a valid principle of teleological explanation 

 has been obtained, is that arising from human im- 

 patience. We must not allow ourselves to forget 

 that the teleological method just reverses the order 

 of historical explanation. What comes first in 

 science, comes last in metaphysics. It is in the 

 higher and subsequent that the explanation of the 

 lower and anterior is to be sought. And instead of 

 being simpler and more susceptible of explanation, 

 the lower stages of the process are really the 



