GENESIS OF MAN. 21 



That Haeckel has fully supplied this want I would not venture 

 to affirm, but that he has made an important contribution towards 

 such a consummation cannot be questioned. "If," says he, "you 

 place all the forms of cosmological conception of the various peo- 

 ples and times into comparative juxtaposition, you can finally bring 

 them all into two squarely opposing groups : a causal or mechani- 

 cal, and a ideological or vitalistic group." 



The first of these groups, by requiring every phenomenon to be 

 conceived as the mechanical effect of an antecedent true cause 

 {causa efficiens), necessarily erects a cosmogony that is bound to- 

 gether throughout by an unbroken chain of mechanically depend- 

 ent phenomena. Such a universe is a unit, and throughout its 

 domain there can pervade but one universal law. This all-pervad- 

 ing homogeneous law is the monistic principle or force, while 

 the whole theory which thus conceives of the universe is termed 

 by Haeckel, indifferently, the monistic, and the mechanical theory 

 of the universe. Only those minds that are imbued with this con- 

 ception as a fundamental quality of their cerebral constitution are 

 capable of appreciating, or of subscribing to the Darwinian and 

 Lamarckian philosophy, which is simply the monistic principle 

 applied to biology. This class has formed in all ages and countries 

 the progressive and reformatory element of mankind. 



The teleological or vitalistic group, on the other hand, conceive 

 of all phenomena as produced by a power either outside of nature 

 and acting upon it, or consisting of Nature regarded as a conscious 

 intelligence, and which, in either case, directs everything for an 

 ordained purpose or end {causa finahs). This recognition of a 

 cause independent of phenomena renders the operations of nature 

 dual, and is designated by Haeckel as the dualistic conception, 

 and the body of such conceptions as the dualistic philosophy. All 

 teleological conceptions are, of necessity, dualistic, just as all causal 

 conceptions are necessarily monistic. The distinction between teleo- 

 logical and theological conceptions vanishes as soon as we class 

 the pantheists among theologists. This class is the great conser- 

 vative element of mankind, who, looking upon nature as under 

 the control of Omnipotence, logically resign all effort either to do 

 or to know into its hands. 



Haeckel also employs the term dysteleology in antithesis to 

 teleology, and frequently uses it as a general term to designate 

 the monistic or mechanical philosophy. 



