CHAPTER XIV. 



THE UNITY OP NATURE. 



The monism of the cosmos. Essential unity of organic and 

 inorganic nature. Carbon-theory. The hypothesis of abio- 

 genesis. Mechanical and purposive causes. Mechanicism and 

 teleology in Kant's works. Design in the organic and inorganic 

 worlds. Vitalism. Neovitalism. Dysteleology (the moral of the 

 rudimentary organs). Absence of design in, and imperfection of, 

 nature. Telic action in organized bodies. Its absence in 

 ontogeny and phylogeny. The Platonist " ideas." No moral 

 order discoverable in the history of the organic world, of the 

 vertebrates, or of the human race. Prevision. Design and 

 chance. 



One of the first things to be proved by the law of 

 substance is the basic fact that any natural force can 

 be directly or indirectly converted into any other. 

 Mechanical and chemical energy, sound and heat, 

 light and electricity, are mutually convertible ; they 

 seem to be but different modes of one and the same 

 fundamental force or energy. Thence follows the 

 important thesis of the unity of all natural forces, or, 

 as it may also be expressed, the " monism of energy." 

 This fundamental principle is now generally recog- 

 nised in the entire province of physics and chemistry, 

 as far as it applies to inorganic substances. 



It seems to be otherwise with the organic world and 

 its wealth of colour and form. It is, of course, obvious 

 that a great part of the phenomena of life may be 

 immediately traced to mechanical and chemical energy, 



260 



