DOMAIN OF EVOLUTIONARY HYPOTHESIS 141 



Thus ' perfection ' implies suitability to purpose 

 (Zweckmdssigkeit) ; its higher or lower grade is 

 determined by the extent of the services which are 

 needed to be rendered simultaneously and purpose- 

 fully, furthermore by the exactness and rapidity of 

 the fulfilment of the inner capacities. 



If what has been said be applied to organisms, 

 many difficulties which Franz presents disappear 

 (see, for instance, p. 9 re land vertebrates and fish). 



Those animals, therefore, which come into purposeful 

 relations with more external objects, and have more 

 means of making these objects useful, are more perfect 

 animals. Man is therefore the most perfect being. 



There is no form of organism which he cannot utilize : 

 he tames the beasts and cultivates the plants. No 

 inorganic energy escapes his service if he needs it. 

 There is no faculty of thought which he has not increased 

 by suitable instruments in order to come into pur- 

 poseful connection with more objects which other- 

 wise would elude his observation. No medium has 

 remained inaccessible to him: he traverses the water 

 and would make the air his own. Thereto will Franz 

 reply that these be intangible ' values ' (Werthe). Let it 

 be called what one will, but it is nevertheless an actual 

 reality. By instruments the extent of the purposeful 

 relations of mankind with the external world are in 

 fact increased : man, therefore, becomes ever more 

 perfect. These relations are, furthermore, to a large 

 extent necessary so that he may preserve his life, which 

 is also something real. 



