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"Darwin," says Professor Kölliker, "is, in the fullest sense of the Word, a Teleologist. And again: "7. The teleological general conception adopted by Darwin is a mistaken one. "Varieties arise irrespectively of the notion of purpose, or of utility, according to general laws of Nature, and may be either useful, or hurtful, or indifferent.
For the teleologist an organism exists because it was made for the conditions in which it is found; for the Darwinian an organism exists because, out of many of its kind, it is the only one which has been able to persist in the conditions in which it is found.
The apparently diverging teachings of the Teleologist and of the Morphologist are reconciled by the Darwinian hypothesis. But leaving our own impressions of the 'Origin of Species, and turning to those passages especially cited by Professor Kolliker, we cannot admit that they bear the interpretation he puts upon them.
Darwin does not agree with Dr. Gray, Dr. Gray does not agree with Mr. Darwin. It is as to the exclusion of design from the operations of nature that our American, differs from the English, naturalist. This is the vital point. The denial of final causes is the formative idea of Darwin's theory, and therefore no teleologist can be a Darwinian. Dr.
"For the teleologist an organism exists, because it was made for the conditions in which it is found; for the Darwinian an organism exists, because, out of many of its kind, it is the only one which has been able to persist in the conditions in which it is found."
We regret to find ourselves compelled to dissent very widely from many of Professor Kolliker's remarks; and from none more thoroughly than from those in which he seeks to define what we may term the philosophical position of Darwinism. "Darwin," says Professor Kolliker, "is, in the fullest sense of the word, a Teleologist. And again: "7.
On the other hand, if the teleologist assert that this, that, or the other result of the working of any part of the mechanism of the universe is its purpose and final cause, the mechanist can always inquire how he knows that it is more than an unessential incident the mere ticking of the clock, which he mistakes for its function.
The arteries lie deeper than the veins, or are otherwise protected, for the purpose as a teleologist would say of preventing serious loss of blood from superficial cuts. Translating this view into evolutionary language, it appears that only animals with deeply placed arteries can survive and transmit their structural peculiarities to their offspring.
On the contrary, the more purely a mechanist the speculator is, the more firmly does he assume a primordial molecular arrangement, of which all the phenomena of the universe are the consequences; and the more completely is he thereby at the mercy of the teleologist, who can always defy him to disprove that this primordial molecular arrangement was not intended to evolve the phenomena of the universe.
On the contrary, the more purely a mechanist the speculator is, the more firmly does he assume a primordial molecular arrangement, of which all the phenomena of the universe are the consequences; and the more completely is he thereby at the mercy of the teleologist, who can always defy him to disprove that this primordial molecular arrangement was not intended to evolve the phenomena of the universe.
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