266 THE RIDDLE OF THE UNIVERSE. 



Necessity for the Subordination of the Mechanical 

 Principle to the Teleological in the Explanation of 

 a Thing as a Natural End." It seemed to Kant so 

 impossible to explain the orderly processes in the 

 living organism without postulating supernatural 

 final causes (that is, a purposive creative force) that 

 he said : * ' It is quite certain that we cannot even 

 satisfactorily understand, much less elucidate, the 

 nature of an organism and its internal faculty on 

 purely mechanical natural principles ; it is so certain, 

 indeed, that we may confidently say, ' It is absurd 

 for a man to conceive the idea even that some day 

 a Newton will arise who can explain the origin of a 

 single blade of grass by natural laws which are 

 uncontrolled by design ' — such a hope is entirely 

 forbidden us." Seventy years afterwards this impos- 

 sible " Newton of the organic world " appeared in the 

 person of Charles Darwin, and achieved the great 

 task that Kant had deemed impracticable. 



Since Newton (1682) formulated the law of gravita- 

 tion, and Kant (1755) established " the constitution 

 and mechanical origin of the entire fabric of the 

 world on Newtonian laws," and Laplace (1796) pro- 

 vided a mathematical foundation for this law of cosmic 

 mechanicism, the whole of the inorganic sciences have 

 become purely mechanical, and at the same time 

 purely atheistic. Astronomy, cosmogony, geology, 

 meteorology, and inorganic physics and chemistry 

 are now absolutely ruled by mechanical laws on a 

 mathematical foundation. The idea of " design " 

 has wholly disappeared from this vast province of 

 science. At the close of the nineteenth century, now 

 that this monistic view has fought its way to general 

 recognition, no scientist ever asks seriously of the 



