4 EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW. 



In the times of the ancients the preponderance of 

 opinion was in favour of teleology, though impugners 

 were not wanting. Aristotle * leant towards a denial 

 of purpose, while Plato t was a firm believer in design. 

 From the days of Plato to our own times, there have 

 been but few objectors to the teleological Or purposive 

 view of nature. If an animal had an eye, that eye was 

 regarded as something which had been designed in 

 order to enable its owner to see after such fashion as 

 should be most to its advantage. 



This, however, is now no longer the prevailing opinion 

 either in this country or in Germany. 



Professor Haeckel holds a high place among the 

 leaders of German philosophy at the present day. He 

 declares a belief in evolution and in purposiveness to 

 be incompatible, and denies purpose in language which 

 holds out little prospect of a compromise. 



" As soon, in fact," he writes, " as we acknowledge 

 the exclusive activity of the physico-chemical causes in 

 living (organic) bodies as weU as in so-called inani- 

 mate (inorganic) nature," — and this is what Professor 

 Haeckel holds we are bound to do if we accept the 

 theory of descent with modification — " we concede ex- 

 clusive dominion to that view of the universe, which 

 we may designate as mechanical, and which is opposed 

 to the teleological conception. If we compare all the 

 ideas of the universe prevalent among different nations 

 at different times, we can divide them all into two 

 * See note to Mr. Darwin, Hiatorical Sketch, &c., ' Origin of Species, 

 p. xiii. ed. 1876, and Arist. ' Physicse Auaoultationes,' lib. ii. cap. viii. 

 B. 2. 

 t See Fhsedo and Timseus. 



