FERTILIZATION OF FLOWERS BY INSECTS. 297 
Without stopping to mention that every teleological explana- 
tion involves an absurdity inasmuch as it suppresses in the order 
of the phenomena the bond between cause and effect, I will here 
briefly adduce some facts which render the acceptance of the 
doctrine of final causes impossible. I have already touched upon 
the errors into which Sprengel fell in thinking that the arrange- 
ments in flowers were so disposed for the benefit of insects. Nor 
can a single example be adduced of a living being whose proper- 
ties are advantageous to other species and not to its own. 
The other supposition then, that every property of individuals 
has been created for their well-being, in the greater number of in- 
stances answers as well for the interpretation of phenomena as 
the Darwinian system. But there are cases in which it does not 
answer at all. The abortive stamens and the anthers without 
pollen in some flowers of Glechoma, Thymus, and other polyga- 
mous Labiate, the tibie of Apathus dilated like those of Bom- 
bus, although the former do not collect pollen, the retrorse teeth 
of the sting of bees which cause the death of those insects if 
they use it, are a few examples drawn from an inexhaustible mine 
of facts, all easily explained by the Darwinian doctrine, and in- 
explicable by the teleological. 
All the numerous instances where the functions and conditions 
of life have been changed in such a way that many of the inher- 
ited properties become of no use or even injurious, offer an insol- 
uble difficulty to the teleological doctrine, while they are in full 
harmony with the Darwinian theory.* 
* I must here, as alw: If a tel vitalist. Now teleology and 
vitalism, far from E ea aioe by the Darwinian doctrine, aa in it their most 
solid support. What do teleology and vitalism mean? They mean that we believe 
that there is in all living things an innate, specific principle, intelli ent, free and 
teleological. This principle is the hidden cause of the variability of organized beings, 
as well as the wonderful harmonies which have been established between one being 
an other 
man nis conscious of aginst: spg a determinate end for his actions 
best means attaini Th 
sophisms of terialists of the present da inst h I d against 
the verdict of consci An is teleological and free, how can other living 
t s, each in its pro sagt ng i alg aa il atlas him by a more or 
Man and other living lags rans baras thar ors feo and are free because, if they 
had not varied they fi ; if they had not been free, they could not 
have varied. Liberty and li joined. The different worlds, 
stones, and crystals obey ipa indeclinab le, mathematical laws. Therefore they do 
not vary. They are n ot free because they do not vary, and do not vary because they 
