CHAPTER XI 



THE MECHANICAL SYSTEM AND ITS LIMITS 



An attempt to refute the theory of evolution. Establishment of 

 theories and investigation of details. Causes and effects. Infinity 

 of same. Impotence of science. Infinite variety in the products 

 of organs. The infinite diversity of the universe. Purpose. 

 Mechanical and teleological causes. There is no end in the 

 development of animals. Sexual selection, orthogenesis, and 

 germinal selection are teleological. Purification of the theory 

 of selection from teleological elements. There are no higher 

 and lower animals. A high grade of organisation gives no more 

 advantage to an animal than a lower. Natural selection is not an 

 absolute principle of betterment. The scientific method of 

 research. Infinite diversity of the universe. Comprehension 

 of same by concepts. Abstraction of the universal. What a 

 natural law is. Ultimate constituents of bodies. Comprehension 

 of the world by ultimate elements. Mathematics. An ether 

 without properties enables us to grasp the world. Does ether 

 exist ? Are psychic processes to be conceived corporeally ? The 

 methods of psychology. Consciousness. The world and the 

 soul are only to be conceived as contents of consciousness. 

 Transition from science to theory of knowledge. 



As we have in the previous chapter refuted the 

 objections to the theory of selection, we may now state 

 our position in the following theses : 



The present living inhabitants of our planet have 

 been gradually developed from the simplest forms in 

 the course of long terrestrial epochs. The latter 

 themselves have been developed from inorganic matter. 



The evolution was and is the work of natural selection, 



a principle that rests on the general laws of nature, and 



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