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Materialism and teleology; elementary short-span actions summing themselves 'blindly, or far foreseen ideals coming with effort into act.
Reaction against the frivolities of teleology, such as are to be found, not rarely, in the notes of the learned commentators on 'Paley's Natural Theology, has, I believe, had a temporary effect of turning attention from the solid irrefragable argument so well put forward in that excellent old book.
This extension of Lotze’s reconciliation of the mechanical causal with the teleological point of view is impressive and, as far as it goes, also quite convincing. It will never be given up, even if the point of view should change somewhat. And we have already seen that it is quite sufficient as long as we are dealing only with the question of teleology.
We saw ourselves compelled to make a choice either of accepting or of rejecting ends in the world, and found that the world resolves itself into a senseless game at dice, and that the phenomena become more unintelligible the more important they are, if we ignore or even reject teleology.
But although it is thus indisputably true that metaphysical teleology is wholly gratuitous if considered scientifically, it may not be true that it is wholly gratuitous if considered psychologically. I conclude, therefore, that the hypothesis of metaphysical teleology, although in a physical sense gratuitous, may be in a psychological sense legitimate.
But on the face of our own planet, where alone we are able to survey the process of evolution in its higher and more complex details, we do find distinct indications of a dramatic tendency, though doubtless not of purpose in the limited human sense. The Darwinian theory, properly understood, replaces as much teleology as it destroys.
In the inexplicable datum of the fundamental factors of the world’s existence, in the strict nexus of causes, in the unfailing occurrence of the results which are determined by both these, and which reveal themselves to us as of value and purpose, teleology and providence are directly realised.
And whether or not behind this one causative principle of natural law there exists a still more ultimate cause in the form of a supernatural Intelligence, this is a question altogether foreign to any argument from teleology, seeing that teleology, in so far as it is teleology, can only rest upon the observed facts of the cosmos; and if these facts admit of being explained by the action of a single causative principle inherent in the cosmos itself, teleology is not free to assume the action of any causative principle of a more ultimate character.
Theism and teleology see in the origin of things a striving towards a goal, a rising from the lower to the higher, a development it is true a development really taken only in the ideal sense of an ideal connection, of a plan; or, as K. E. v. Baer, in 1834, in his lecture on the most common law of nature in all development, expresses himself, of a progressive victory of mind over matter.
Organisms vary incessantly; of these variations the few meet with surrounding conditions which suit them and thrive; the many are unsuited and become extinguished. According to Teleology, each organism is like a rifle bullet fired straight at a mark; according to Darwin, organisms are like grapeshot of which one hits something and the rest fall wide.
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