Page:Philosophical Review Volume 15.djvu/170

152 state the theory in an intelligible form without introducing teleological considerations. The scientist with positivist leanings glibly says that his business is to get at the facts. But how does he get the facts? By causal analysis, he will reply. But he here inconsistently introduces the teleological point of view. For, as we have seen, the only way to find out what is, is to find out how it came to be and what it will do. The only strictly mechanical statements of law are in the form of equations; and the philosophical scientist will himself admit that these are but conceptual shorthand for serial operations which are shot through and through with purpose.

The only antidote to a mechanical evolutionism is a deeper, more organic interpretation of evolution itself. Evolution is ordinarily conceived as a movement between fixed limits, a progress from a definite starting-point to a definite goal. But in a true conception the starting-point and the goal are not fixed. The ideas of beginning and end are wholly relative to the process from which they are abstractions. We must interpret the faintest beginnings of growth in terms of the ripest result as well as the later stages in terms of the earlier. I have not explained anything by simply tracing its connections with preëxisting entities—by an account of its genesis. I have not fully explained it until I have also disclosed its use, its function, in the present and in that career yet to be unrolled of which Mr. Baldwin speaks. If the former be called the mechanical explanation, it must be supplemented by the latter, the teleological. Strictly speaking, these cannot be separated. Genesis cannot be explained except by reference to function, and function can be understood only in the light of genesis. "The ultimate interpretation even of the lowest existence," says Dr. Caird, "cannot be given except on principles which are adequate to explain the highest." "The true meaning of the lowest phases of evolution can be found only in the highest, just as the meaning of the acorn can be found only in the full-grown oak.… The first step will not be fully understood until the last is taken, which will never be." Why there