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action; for it is a fundamental mark of such action. Final 
causation, action in view of an end, the idea of the end con- 
trolling the action — this is, in its most obvious expression 
that peculiarity of our nature in virtue of which we are termed 
rational animals. Rationality — rational action — is not known 
without the aid of the conception of final cause. This requires 
no demonstration. It follows that the conception is a true 
principle of cognition — a true and trustworthy element of know- 
ledge — for the sphere of rational life, i.e.for the only sphere of 
which to e have direct knowledge. 
The marks of the action of final causes, learned positively 
from our own personal experience and from our observation of 
others who are like us, are order, orderly movement, combina- 
tion and convergence of forces. Where these are absent, we 
may be and are sure that there is no controlling final (intelli- 
gent) cause. Whenever they are found present in natural 
objects — as they are pre-eminently in the organic world — 
under such circumstances that we cannot trace back their 
origin to the action of an intelligent cause (or causes) known 
to us through material signs (such as reveal to us, for example, 
our fellow-men), it becomes a query whether, after all, these 
marks are not signs of intelligent action, even though the 
agent in question be invisible to us, or whether they can pos- 
sibly be accounted for upon any other hypothesis than that of 
such action. The doctrine of this paper is that they cannot ; 
that the limits and conditions of our knowledge, as above 
pointed out, render it impossible for us to know any kind of 
being, except as we apply to it the analogies of ideal being, 
or any kind of action which is not ultimately resolvable into 
rational action. But action in view of ends, i.e. “ final cau- 
sation/'’ is the characteristic of ideal being and of rationality, 
and hence we have every reason — so far as the logical neces- 
sities of the case, as a problem in cognition, are concerned — 
to interpret signs of rationality in nature, i.e. signs of the 
action of final causes) as really indicating rationality. An 
examination of some other explanations offered to account for 
marks of design in nature, will confirm our own conclusions. 
The insufficiency of chance, as an hypothesis by which to 
account for such marks, is too obvious, and has been too often 
pointed out, for us te need to dwell upon it. Cicero’s sug- 
gestion that it be applied to explain, if possible, the origin of 
such a work as the Annals of Ennius, through the accidental 
combination of metallic letters cast upon the ground, was 
sufficient from the popular point of view, to reduce it to the 
absiu’d ; and any modern treatise on the theory of probabilities 
will show its moral insufficiency (i.e, the infinite number of 
