376 DARWINISM AND THE PROBLEMS OF LIFE 



warm again. If it does the animals with the thinnest 

 coats will be in the best position. 



When we reflect on the past history of animals and 

 find that a long time ago thick-coated animals were 

 selected because the cold persisted, we cannot even 

 then speak of an improvement. We have not to consider 

 the chains of cause and effect in relation to what they 

 eventually lead to, as that would be teleological. We 

 have to look on each change only as the effect of a past 

 cause. When we are studying the past, we must leave 

 the present out of account. It would be unscientific to 

 predict the persistence of the cold. 



• • • • • • • 



We have now purified the theory of selection of all 

 teleological elements and prepared it for incorporation 

 in Mechanism. We may now return to the question 

 from which we started, and ask if Mechanism gives us 

 a satisfactory explanation of the world and how it does 

 so. We have to examine its method, and as this is at 

 the same time the method of all natural science — in 

 its higher forms — we shall learn to appreciate scientific 

 method generally. 



We have already seen that it is the infinity of the 

 world that prevents the human mind from comprehending 

 it. We will now go more fully into the point. 



When the man of science approaches the object of his 

 investigation, the world, he feels himself surrounded by 

 a bewildering wealth of forms that he can never compass. 

 The corporeal world is infinite in its variety and 

 inexhaustible. No][one thing is like another ; everything 



