On the Mtchanical Conception of Nature. 697 



" Were the mechanism of natural laws not teleo- 

 logical there would be no mechanically regulated 

 laws, but a weak chaos of obstinate and capricious 

 powers. Not until the causality of the laws of 

 inorganic nature had superseded the? expression 

 " dead " nature, and had shown itself as the main- 

 spring of life and of a conformability to design 

 visible on all sides, did it deserve the name of 

 mechanical lawfulness ; just as a complication of 

 wheels and machinery made by man, which move 

 in some definite manner with respect to one 

 another, only acquires the name of a mechanism 

 or of a machine when the immanent teleology of 

 the combination and of the various movements of 

 the parts is revealed." * 



Against the correctness of the idea underlying 

 these statements scarcely anything can in my 

 opinion be said. The harmony of the universe and 

 of that portion of it which we designate organic 

 nature, cannot be explained by chance, i.e. with- 

 out a common ground for co-operating necessities; 

 by the side of mere mechanism it is impossible 

 not to acknowledge a teleological principle the 

 only question is, in what manner can we conceive 

 this as acting without abandoning the purely 

 mechanical conception of nature ? 



This is obviously effected if, with Von Baer and 

 Von Hartmann, we permit the metaphysical 

 principle to interrupt the course of the mechanism 

 * f^f. fit. p. 156. 



