FITNESS WITHOUT DESIGN. IgI 
as one, which, by purely mechanical compensative phe- 
nomena, produces advantageous results. The theory of 
descent merely casts doubts on the teleological principle 
by withdrawing the basis for positive proof, but the 
doctrine of selection sets it directly aside, so far as it is 
able to extend its explanation. For natural selection 
in the struggle for existence, the extermination of the 
less appropriate, and the survival and perpetuation of the 
fittest and most appropriate, is a process of mechanical 
causality of which the steady conformity to law is 
nowhere infringed by any teleological controlling meta- 
physical principle. This, however, produces a result 
essentially corresponding to design; that is to say, it 
naturally bestows on organisms the highest capacity 
for life under given circumstances. Natural selection 
solves the apparently insoluble problem of explaining 
fitness as a result, without calling in the aid of design 
as a principle. 
In each family—for, as we have seen, what zoologists 
once designated type, has in the doctrine of Descent 
become the family—in each family lies the potentiality 
of a certain grade of perfection; and when the main 
outline of the family character is established, we see a 
development taking place, of which the potentiality is 
inherent in the tendency of the character, the realization 
and necessity in the external conditions. Hence to us 
also, progress is development, but not towards a pre- 
destined and pre-established harmony. Karl Ernst v. 
Baer,“ anxious to rescue design, or at least the “ pur- 
pose”—in short, predestiny, in the evolutionary series of 
Nature, says: “ Every cause engenders a process which 
again works on towards another purpose.” But why 
