I. TELEOLOGY IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY BEFORE KANT I. Descartes. 2. Gassendi. 3. English investigators, par- ticularly Boyle and 4, Newton. 5. Leibniz in his relation to Cartesianism and Spinoza. 6. The general system, and 7, the special aspects of the teleology of Leibniz. 8. Wolffian modifications of the teleology of Leibniz. 9. Reimarus. 10. Maupertuis. 1. Teleology in the fragment on Optimism. 2. Development in the General History and Theory of the Heavens. 3. Comparison of Kant's early views with those of Leibniz. 4. Teleology in the Sole Proof. Moral and non moral depend- III. THE PERIOD 1763-1781 1. The aspects of formal purposiveness, (a) Unity of Nature, varying conception of its ground and final merging of the problem into that of Unity of Experience. (b) Relation of the mind to its object. (c) The regulative principles of science, homogeneousness, continuity and specification. 2. Treatment of Organic Life in this period. 3. Physico-theology in the Meta- physik. 4. Moral theology in the Metaphysik. 5. Physico-and moral theology in the Critique of Pure IV. THE DEVELOPMENT OF TELEOLOGY AFTER 1781 1. Idea for a Universal History. 2. Development of formal purposiveness in the projected Critique of Taste up to 1788. 3. Teleology in the article On the Use of Teleological Princi- ples in Nature. 4. The general point of view of the Critique of Judgment. 5. Changed interpretation of Leibniz's pre- established harmony. 6. Objective teleology in organized beings. 7. Physical and moral teleology in their relations to In addition to the obligations indicated in the notes I wish to express my special indebtedness to the works of Riehl, Caird, Stadler and B. Erdmann, and to the personal help of Professors Garman, Ladd, and Riehl, with whom I have studied Kant. Freiburg i. B. June 7, 1892. JAMES H. TUFTS. I. TELEOLOGY IN MODERN PHILOSOPHY BEFORE KANT. 1. Modern science and philosophy in breaking with scholasticism, found themselves in doubt as to what they should do with the doctrine of final causes. This hesitation was quite independent of the theological consequences, or of the general scientific position of the investigator. Descartes, for whom the guaranty for the trustworthiness of his science lies in the confidence that God will not deceive, is for rejecting utterly the consideration of final causes. Our mind is incapable of understanding all the ends that God may have in creation and hence we must wholly reject the search for final causes. Still less is it possible to say that God has made all for our sake, though such a pious thought might excite greater gratitude on our part. Nor can we assume to understand some of God's ends without presuming to grasp all, "omnes enim in imperscrutabile ejus sapientiæ abysso sunt eodem modo reconditi.' From the uses of parts of plants and animals we may recognize and praise God, the workman, but cannot divine. his end. 993 2 2. Gassendi, on the other hand, the reviver of Epicureanism, whose theology has very slight relation to his science, by no means shares the opinion of Descartes. He affirms that though we may not understand all God's ends, there are some which force 1Cum enim jam sciam naturam meam esse valde infirmam et limitatam, Dei autem naturam esse immensam, incomprehensibilem, infinitam, ex hoc satis etiam scio innumerabilia illum posse quorum causas ignorem; atque ob hanc unicam rationem totum illud causarum genus quod a fine peti solet, in rebus phyicis nullum usum habere existimo; non enim absque temeritate me puto posse investigare fines Dei. Med. IV. See also Princip. I. 28 and III. 2. 2 Prin. III. 3. Resp. V. de iis quae in Med. IV. 1. 2 themselves upon our attention; notably, the functions or uses of parts of the body, e. g. the mouth for nutriment and respiration, and especially the umbilical vessels, the valves of the heart and the tendons of the fingers. Nor is it for theological purposes alone that final causes are worthy of study. They are frequently an aid in discovering the efficient causes in which alone physics is interested according to Descartes, while if we abandon final causes entirely, there then is no conclusive reason for assuming God as the efficient cause. Why may not the world always have been as it is, or at least have assumed its present form by chance as the result of the elements of which it consists? 3 3. In England, in spite of Bacon's well-known sarcasm, comparing final causes with a vestal virgin, who is consecrated to God and bears nothing, the most eminent scientific investigators, Boyle and Newton, declared for a cautious use of final causes, while Locke, though making only a slight allusion to the subject, evidently uses the physico-theological argument as one link in his proof for the existence of God.* As Boyle's teleology is almost identical with that of Newton, which was so prominently before Kant, it is worth special notice, although his discussion may not have been directly in Kant's hands. After agreeing with Gassendi's position, that man may discover some, though not all, the ends of God, and claiming that an important difference exists in this respect between celestial bodies -and organized beings, he takes up the question as to whether the action for ends may be ascribed to unintelligent and even inanimate bodies. These, he says, cannot act for their own ends, but may from ends of the creator, and this he thinks may be conceived as accomplished through the original endowment of matter by the creator, with such properties and laws of motion as would produce the designed effects, each part acting as regularly for the attain 1Quae sane et caetera quoque, reipsa non minus miranda manifestant nobis, velimus, nolimus, quem finem in ipsis ita conformandis, naturae Author habuerit. Op. omnia, Lug. 1758. Tomus III. 361 b. 2 At ex investigatione finium, non ipsa modo causa finalis existere intelligitur; sed is ipse quoque est gradus ad agnoscendum efficientem, quae in efficiendo talem sibi ipsi proposuerit finem. Ibid, 360 b, 361 a. 4 3 Ibid. 360 b. Essay on Human Understanding. Book IV., Chap. X, 5, 6, 7. ment of ends as though itself "understanding and industriously prosecuting those ends." Finally, as to whether a naturalist may consider final causes, he thinks that, though unsafe elsewhere, it is sometimes allowable in the bodies of animals to infer some of the ends from the manifest uses of the parts, and conjecture the offices from the nature and structure. "I speak only of those ends and uses of the parts of an animal that relate to the welfare and propagation of the animal itself." Nor should final causes ever take the place of efficient; it is an important thing to know that a watch has the function to keep time, but the mechanic needs also to understand its construction. The point of view from which the whole is judged, however, is that of a mechanism so constituted at the outset that all effects are produced without any further interference❝it more sets off the wisdom of God in the fabric of the universe that he can make so vast a machine perform all these many things which he designed it should, by the mere contrivance of brute matter managed by certain laws of local motion and upheld by his ordinary and general concourse, than if he employed from time to time an intelligent overseer, such as nature is fancied to be, to regulate, assist and control the motions of the parts.' 4. What seemed a possibility to Boyle was demonstrated by Newton so far as the movements of the heavenly bodies were concerned. But emphatic as were the protests of the great mathematician against the occult or specific qualities of the scholastics, he insists that "it's unphilosophical to seek for any other Origin of the World [than creation by the counsel of an intelligent agent], or pretend that it might arise out of a chaos by the mere Laws of Nature. For while Comets move in very eccentric Orbs in all manner of Positions, blind Fate could never make all the Planets move one and the same way in Orbs concentrick. Such a wonderful Uniformity in the Planetary System must be allowed the Effect of Choice, And so must the Uniformity in the "A Disquisition about the Final Causes of Natural Things, wherein it is inquired whether, and if at all, with what Cautions a Naturalist should admit them."-Works, London, 1744, Vol. IV. Cf. also A Free Inquiry into the vulgarly received notion of Nature," and "Of the High Veneration Man's Intellect owes to God, peculiarly for His Wisdom and Power." 2 Works, Vol. IV., p. 362 a. Cf. p. 530 a. |