THE UNITY OF NATURE. 265 



clearly and honestly replied : " Sire, I have managed 

 without that hypothesis." That indicated the atheistic 

 character which this mechanical cosmogony shares 

 with all the other inorganic sciences. This is the 

 more noteworthy because the theory of Kant and 

 Laplace is now almost universally accepted ; every 

 attempt to supersede it has failed. When atheism is 

 denounced as a grave reproach, as it so often is, it is 

 well to remember that the reproach extends to the 

 whole of modern science, in so far as it gives a purely 

 mechanical interpretation of the inorganic world. 



Mechanicism (in the Kantian sense) alone can give 

 us a true explanation of natural phenomena, for it 

 traces them to their real efficient causes, to blind and 

 unconscious agencies, which are determined in their 

 action only by the material constitution of the bodies 

 we are investigating. Kant himself emphatically 

 affirms that " there can be no science without this 

 mechanicism of nature," and that the capacity of 

 human reason to give a mechanical interpretation of 

 phenomena is unlimited. But when he came subse- 

 quently to give an elucidation of the complex pheno- 

 mena of organic nature in his critique of the 

 teleological system, he declared that these mechanical 

 causes were inadequate ; that in this we must call 

 final causes to our assistance. It is true, he said, that 

 even here we must recognise the theoretical faculty 

 of the mind to give a mechanical interpretation, but 

 its actual competence to do so is restricted. He grants 

 it this capacity to some extent ; but for the majority 

 of the vital processes (and especially for man's psychic 

 activity) he thinks we are bound to postulate final 

 causes. The remarkable § 79 of the critique of judg- 

 ment bears the characteristic heading : "On the 



