364 DARWINISM AND THE PROBLEMS OF LIFE 



It must first make it intelligible — must transform it. 

 Then it may succeed in grasping the world. 



Mechanism endeavours to understand the world, and 

 has succeeded to a certain extent. But before we inquire 

 how it solves the riddle of the universe, we must first 

 make clear the unity of the world, even in relation to 

 organisms, which it implies. We have, therefore, to 

 exclude entirely from the organic world the non- 

 mechanical theory. 



We saw something in the previous chapter of theories 

 that deny the identity of living with lifeless matter. 

 We rejected these theories. Now we will deal with 

 the common ground-work of them all. 



They hold that the chief characteristic of living sub- 

 stance is its aiming at an end. They think that there is 

 latent in every ovum a force that comes into play in the 

 development of the ovum, and controls the evolution so 

 as to attain the end — the fully-formed organism. In the 

 same way, they say, there was a force in living matter 

 from the start that aimed at advancement, and has con- 

 tinually realised its end — the creation of higher forms — 

 until it produced man as the crown of its work. 



We give the name of teleology to the view that the 

 evolution of living things was controlled by a plan 

 or end. 



There is, of course, causality in the teleological system. 

 But it differs from that we have already considered. In 

 ordinary causality the cause thrusts the effect from it, as 

 it were ; causes and effects follow each other eternally, 



