122 HABIT^ AND INTELLIGENCE. [chap. 



ends, physical science gives no hint or suggestion of any 

 answer. If any question concerning any absolute purpose 

 in creation is capable of being answered at all, it is not by 

 science that it can be answered. 



Nevertheless, I believe that science does place on a 

 secure basis the theory of relative means and purposes 

 in the organic creation, as distinct from mere physical 

 cause and effect ; and I think this truth has been obscured 

 to men's minds in this country by the use of the awk- 

 Final Ward and inaccurate expression final cause in the sense 

 inaccurate °^ Creative purpose. This expression is doubly wrong : 

 expres-i Creative purposes, as made known in organic adapta- 

 tions, are not causes, but, as I maintain, belong to another 

 class of relations ; and they are not final, for they are 

 not ends in themselves, but only ends which are also 

 means. 



From my saying that I do not regard the relation of 

 means and purpose in organization as being a case of the 

 relation of cause and effect, it may perhaps be inferred that 

 I deny the universality of the law of causation. Nothing 

 can be farther from my thought. I have no doubt that the 

 law of causation is co-extensive with the universe, but it 

 does not follow that every relation in the universe must be 

 a case of causation. The analogy of human art may make 

 this clear. Every machine and every engineering work 

 has been constructed by definite means, and for a definite 

 purpose ; but the question, by what means it has been 

 constructed, is distinct from the question, for what purpose 

 it has been constructed ; .and a statement that answers the 

 one is no answer to the other. The purpose of the Menai 

 tubular bridge was to shorten the distance between the 

 capitals of England and Ireland : but this statement gives 

 no information as to the way in which that wonderful 

 structure was put together and raised into its place. I 

 shall have to give reasons farther on for believing that the 

 Organic Same perfect distinctness of purpose from cause, or origin, 

 fmph^^s'^in'^ holds good in biology ; and that the adaptations of organi- 

 telligence. zation, like those of human art, are to be referred to the 

 operation of an intelligence that transcends ordinary phy- 



