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defended by any truly philosophical believer in design. Plato of 
old perceived, as well as Hegel and Darwin in modern times 
have done, the obstructiveness of matter — the obstacles it 
opposes to the direct realization of the Idea. And no rightly- 
thinking man since Plato’s time can, in view of obvious facts, 
have supposed that “ each organism is like a bullet fired 
straight at a mark.” Teleology does indeed claim that the 
organic and other natural processes in this world, being con- 
formed to laws, are aimed towards more or less specific ends. 
But it does not claim that the organic world is a collection of 
units created separately and outright for the realization of dis- 
tinct and wholly unrelated ideas. It does not ignore the fact 
of the inter-relation of these units, and that they are dependent 
on each other and on their relation to the whole world-process 
in general. It simply notes the signs of intelligence, of plan, 
and perceives the inadequacy of (assumed) blind foi’ce to 
account for them, and hence assigns (hypothetically) the only 
cause known to be adequate. Huxley has elsewhere, in 
showing the compatibility of Darwinism with design, shown 
that he has the idea of another and a more defensible kind of 
teleology than that which he seeks to discredit, and it is per- 
missible to express astonishment at his assuming — contrary to 
the facts in the history of philosophical opinion — that the 
accredited ground of teleologists is that described by him, but 
held only by the most superficial. 
As regards the charge of anthropomorphism in the specifi- 
cation and description of the ends of natural objects, those 
whom it affects must meet it if they can. We who recognize 
that God’s thoughts are not as our thoughts may be content, 
if need be, not to know nor to seek for ulterior ends — ends 
extraneous to the organism itself, such as human comfort and 
convenience — where there is no direct organic connection 
pointing to such ends. It is enough to recognize the sym- 
metry, the order, the beauty, the harmony in the organism — 
things for which the principle of final cause will surely account, 
and of which there is direct evidence — without assuming the 
existence of other purposes, the evidence of which is only 
indirect or even hypothetical. The principle of final cause is 
burdened with a weight which it is neither able nor justly 
required to bear when ends are ascribed to nature, our warrant 
for asserting which may perhaps only be found in the limitation 
of our experience or of our conccptive faculties. 
The Chairman. — It is now my duty to move that the thanks of this 
meeting he presented to Professor Morris for the paper just read,* the 
* Dr. E. Haughton says : — “ In proof of the argument in the last 
