86 THE REIGN OF LAW. 



an organ, for example, is a matter of purely phy- 

 sical investigation. But the. Function of an organ 

 is not merely that which it does, but it is that 

 which its construction enables it to do. It is, not 

 merely its work, but it is the work assigned to it 

 as an Apparatus, and as fitted to other organs 

 having other functions related to its own. The very 

 idea of Function is therefore inseparable from the 

 idea of Purpose. The Function of an organ is its 

 Purpose : and the relation of its parts, and of the 

 whole to that Purpose, is as much and as defi- 

 nitely a scientific fact as the relation of any other 

 phenomenon to Space, or Time, or Number. 



This distinction between Purpose as a general 

 inference and Purpose as a particular fact, has 

 not been sufficiently observed. The just con- 

 demnation pronounced by Bacon on the pursuit 

 of Final Causes as distorting the true Method 

 of Physical Investigation, has been applied with- 

 out discrimination to two very different concep- 

 tions. Even Philosophers who believe in the 

 Supremacy of Purpose in Nature have been will- 

 ing to banish this conception from the Domain of 

 Science, and to classify it as belonging altogether 



