ON THE VITALISTIC VIEW OF NATURE. 407 



In order to enable my readers to comprehend clearly 

 the great change which has come over biological thought 

 through Darwin's writings and reasonings, I must now 

 introduce an idea which I have so far intentionally 

 avoided in discussing the various scientific views of 

 nature. This is the idea of final causes, the apparent 

 existence of a purpose (in German Zivcck), or an end 

 (in German Ziel) in all processes of nature, but pre- 

 eminently in those of the living portion of creation. In 

 all writings prior to Darwin a great deal is made of 

 final causes in nature, of the teleology of living processes. 

 The phenomena of life seemed safely intrenched in the 

 citadel of final causes : no mechanism could explain 

 them away. The very fact that organisms were com- 

 pared with machines, admitted the existence of a definite 

 end and purpose ; for it is the peculiarity of every 

 humanly constructed machine or instrument that it 

 serves a definite purpose which, in the mind of the 

 inventor or maker, suggested the peculiar arrangement or 

 organisation which we behold. The criticisms of Lotze ^ 



ches,' &c. : " Les esprits sdvbres et say tliat Lotze, though ceasing to 



amis des progrfes des sciences ... be a vitalist, remained an animist. 



ont regrettc que I'auteur o))po.sat Discarding vital force, he retained 



sans cesse la vie aux lois physiques, the couce|)tion of a soul in a 



comme si les etres vivans n'etaient manner which drew upon him the 



pas de corps, avant d'etre des vdgd- ridicule of those wIkjui, like Carl 



taux ou des animaux " ("avertisse- Vogt, he had converted to pure 



ment " to the 4th ed. of Bichat's materialism. This has had the 



' Recherches,' &c., 1822). consequence, that in more recent 



' The lengthy discussions of Lotze times his whole philosophy has 



contained in the writings quoted been stigmatised as dualistic, and 



above are not easy to understand, that he has been accused of having 



and it is not surprising that, be- halted halfway. His real meaning 



yond the elimination of the con- j can be gathered more easily from 



ception of vital force as useless to '. his later and more mature writ- 



the purely scientific student, his ' ings : for his contcm)ioraries it 



real meaning was at the time not must have remained to a great 



grasped at all. In fact, we may extent enigmatical. See Kauf- 



