PRESENT EVOLUTIONARY CONFUSION 37 



" It may be indeed, it certainly is incomparably 

 more difficult to construe the universe as a system of 

 reason and purpose than as a system of cause and effect, 

 nevertheless we cannot finally evade the task, and surely 

 it is noble and inspiring beyond measure. Unto this 

 task it is that the twentieth century is invited, and 

 ' along the line of limitless desires/ It is in fact an 

 awakening to a new and higher form of self-knowledge 

 than Spirit has hitherto attained, a distincter recognition 

 of the Future as the matrix of the Present, a pursuit 

 more conscious than ever before of the flying goal of 

 history. We dare reverse the homely aphorism of 

 Goethe and affirm that, without abandoning the causal 

 view of the Past, we must turn to the teleological view of 

 the Future, we must seek to understand the total present 

 as a system of living and striving instincts where instinct 

 itself in Hartmann's phrase ' is the (conscious) choice 

 of means towards an end unconsciously chosen.' So 

 then it is the end, the aim, that rises before us as guiding 

 star in this twentieth century interpretation of history, 

 yea, we may indeed proclaim, ' The Kingdom of Ends 

 is drawn nigh/ ' 



W. B. SMITH; The Monist, January, 1913. 



