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Updated: June 19, 2025
That which struck the present writer most forcibly on his first perusal of the 'Origin of Species' was the conviction that Teleology, as commonly understood, had received its deathblow at Mr. Darwin's hands.
Every art is thus a joint result of laws of nature disclosed by science, and of the general principles of what has been called Teleology, or the Doctrine of Ends; which, borrowing the language of the German metaphysicians, may also be termed, not improperly, the principles of Practical Reason. A scientific observer or reasoner, merely as such, is not an adviser for practice.
In a word, it is the fact and not the method of Evolution which is subversive of Teleology in its Paleyerian form.
But it is necessary to remember that there is a higher teleology, which is not touched by the doctrine of evolution, but is actually based on the fundamental proposition of evolution.
But perhaps the most remarkable service to the philosophy of Biology rendered by Mr. Darwin is the reconciliation of Teleology and Morphology, and the explanation of the facts of both which his views offer.
At least, it would appear that in Darwinian evolution we may have a theory that accords with if it does not explain the principal facts, and a teleology that is free from the common objections. But is it a teleology, or rather to use the new-fangled term a dysteleology? That depends upon how it is held.
If, then, my contention be granted viz., that to human faculties it is not conceivable how, in the absence of a directing intelligence, general laws could be so correlated as to produce universal harmony then I have brought the matter to this issue: Notwithstanding the scientific train of argument being complete in itself, it still leaves us in the presence of a fact which it cannot conceivably explain; and it is this unexplained residuum this total product of the operation of general laws that I appeal to as the logical justification for a system of metaphysical teleology a system which offers the only conceivable explanation of this stupendous fact.
Now, the question is, Does this involve the destruction or only the reconstruction of our consecrated ideas of teleology? Is it compatible with our seemingly inbore conception of Nature as an ordered system? Furthermore, and above all, can the Darwinian theory itself dispense with the idea of purpose, in the ordinary sense of the word, as tantamount to design?
But we must ask whether religion will be satisfied with “teleology” alone, or whether this is even the first requirement that it makes in regard to natural phenomena. We have already asked the question and attempted to clear the ground for an answer. Let us try to make it more definite.
In denying the materialistic theory of development, Driesch again determinedly “traverses” his own earlier views. He does this, too, when he now rejects the reconciliation between causality and teleology as different modes of looking at things. The teleological now seems to him itself a factor playing a part in the chain of causes, and thus making it teleological.
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