013. III. The Teleological Argument.

III. The Teleological Argument.

1. The Doctrine of Final Cause.—Teleology is composed of the words τέλος and λόγος, and means the doctrine of ends, or of rational purpose.^[124] In the theistic argument it is the doctrine of rational purpose or design in the construction of the cosmos, as exemplified in the foresight and choice of ends and the use of appropriate means for their attainment. There are many exemplifications of the idea in human mechanisms. The microscope and the telescope have each a chosen end, while each is wisely adapted to its attainment. The purpose is the clearer observation of things but dimly seen, or the discovery of things which the unaided eye cannot reach. The idea of divine finality is of frequent occurrence in the Scriptures. Here is an instance: “He that planted the ear, shall he not hear? he that formed the eye, shall he not see?” (Psalms 44:9).

^[124]Krauth-Fleming:Vocabulary, p. 510.

“The special manifestation of the divine knowledge is in the purpose of the ear and the eye, and the adaptation of each to its chosen end. This argument does not depart from the principle of causation, but builds upon It in the special sphere of rational ends. As the dependent cosmos requires an eternal being possessing spontaneity and omnipotence of will as the only adequate cause, so the many instances of adaptation to ends in the construction of the cosmos require the agency of a divine intelligence as the only sufficient cause.

2. Rational Ends in Human Agency.—This is so certain a truth that it is in little need of either illustration or verification. The history of the race is full of its products and proofs. The crude implements of the paleolithic and neolithic ages were the chosen means for the attainment of chosen ends. The rudest hut provided as a shelter from the rains of summer and the inclemency of winter is the production of human purpose. In a higher civilization, the building and furnishing of houses, the implements of agriculture, the tools and machinery used in manufacture, the products of the manufacture, the construction and form of the ship, the rudder for steering, the sails hung from the yards to catch the winds for propulsion, the telegraph, telephone, and locomotive all mean the attainment of rational ends.

We are conscious of such an agency, and easily trace the mental process. Conceiving an end, electing its attainment, and using appropriate means for the attainment—these are the facts in the process, and the facts of final cause. Each one is sure of such a mental process in others; and his certainty has a deeper ground than mere empiricism—a ground in reason itself. For such agency we require personal mind, and on the principle that every event must have an adequate cause.

3. Rational Ends in the Cosmos.—In the construction of the cosmos there is an orderly and pervasive plan, correlations of part to part, adaptations of means to ends which evince and require a divine intelligence as the only sufficient cause. There are two aspects of nature concerned in this argument. One appears in the orderly processes of nature; the other, in the special adaptations of means to ends. In this distinction some find two arguments, while others find one argument in two spheres.^[125] The distinction of arguments does not seem important, but the distinction of spheres is clearly useful. This distinction is often made without any formal notification.

^[125]Diman:The Theistic Argument, pp. 105, 106; Flint:Theism, p. 133; Janet:Final Causes, p. 12. An orderly constitution of nature is as necessary to a knowledge or science of nature as the rational intelligence of mind. “If, then, knowledge be possible, we must declare that the world-ground proceeds according to thought-laws and principles, that it has established all things in rational relations, and balanced their interaction in quantitative and qualitative proportion, and measured this proportion by number. ‘God geometrizes,’ says Plato. ‘Number is the essence of reality,’ says Pythagoras. And to this agree all the conclusions of scientific thought. The heavens are crystallized mathematics. All the laws of force are numerical. The interchange of energy and chemical combination are equally so. Crystals are solid geometry. Many organic products show similar mathematical laws. Indeed, the claim is often made that science never reaches its final form until it becomes mathematical. But simple existence in space does not imply motion in mathematical relations, or existence in mathematical forms. Space is only the formless ground of form, and is quite compatible with the irregular and amorphous. It is equally compatible with the absence of numerical law. The truly mathematical is the work of the spirit. Hence the wonder that mathematical principles should be so pervasive, that so many forms and processes in the system represent definite mathematical conceptions, and that they should be so accurately weighed and measured by number.

“If the cosmos were a resting existence, we might possibly content ourselves by saying that things exist in such relations once for all, and that there is no going behind this fact. But the cosmos is no such rigid monotony of being; it is, rather, a process according to intelligible rules; and in this process the rational order is perpetually maintained or restored. The weighing and measuring continually goes on. In each chemical change just so much of one element is combined with just so much of another. In each change of place the intensities of attraction and repulsion are instantaneously adjusted to correspond. Apart from any question of design, the simple fact of qualitative and quantitative adjustment of all things, according to fixed law, is a fact of the utmost significance. The world-ground works at a multitude of points, or in a multitude of things, throughout the system, and works in each with exact reference to its activities in all the rest. The displacement of an atom by a hair’s-breadth demands a corresponding re-adjustment in every other within the grip of gravitation. But all are in constant movement, and hence re-adjustment is continuous and instantaneous. The single law of gravitation contains a problem of such dizzy vastness that our minds faint in the attempt to grasp it; but when the other laws of force are added the complexity defies all understanding. In addition we might refer to the building processes in organic forms, whereby countless structures are constantly produced or maintained, and always with regard to the typical form in question. But there is no need to dwell upon this point.

“Here, then, is a problem, and we have only the two principles of intelligence and non-intelligence, of self-directing reason and blind necessity, for its solution. The former is adequate, and is not far-fetched and violent. It assimilates the facts to our own experience, and offers the only ground of order of which that experience furnishes any suggestion. If we adopt this view all the facts become luminous and consequent. “If we take the other view, then we have to assume a power which produces the intelligible and rational, without being itself intelligent and rational. It works in all things, and in each with exact reference to all, yet without knowing any thing of itself or of the rules it follows, or of the order it founds, or of the myriad products compact of seeming purpose which it incessantly produces and maintains. If we ask why it does this, we must answer. Because it must. If we ask how we know that it must, the answer must be. By hypothesis. But this reduces to saying that things are as they are because they must be. That is, the problem is abandoned altogether. The facts are referred to an opaque hypothetical necessity, and this turns out, upon inquiry, to be the problem itself in another form. There is no proper explanation except in theism.”^[126] This citation possesses great logical force, and in our brief discussion will answer for the argument from the orderly system of nature.

^[126]Bowne:Philosophy of Theism, pp. 66-69. The adaptations of means to ends, of organs to functions, in organic orders are so many, so definite, and so manifest that there is little need of elaborative illustration. The ground has often been occupied, and the facts presented with the clearness of scientific statement and the force of eloquent expression. No optical instrument equals the eye in the complexity and combination of parts. The organs for the functions of hearing, respiration, nutrition, locomotion, infinitely transcend all human mechanisms. The organ of the human voice in like measure excels all artificial instruments of sound. The venous system with the heart is a wonderful provision for the circulation of the blood. Are the functions of such organs the purposed ends of their formation, or the unpurposed effects of their existence? The grossest materialism can neither question their seemingly skillful construction, nor their peculiar fitness for the functions which they fulfill. But materialism denies any and all finality in their formation. Eyes were not made for seeing, nor ears for hearing, nor feet for walking, nor hands for any of the mechanical and artistic ends which they serve. We have eyes, and so we see; ears, and so we hear; feet, and so we walk; hands, and so we use them in the service of many ends. But in no instance is there any foresight or purpose of the function in the formation of the organ. What is thus held of the organs specified is affirmed of all organs in the realm of living orders. Here is the point of issue between theism and materialism or any science or philosophy which denies a purposive divine agency in the adaptation of organs to their respective functions. A divine finality must not here be assumed either because of the seemingly skillful construction of organs or because of their peculiar fitness for the functions which they fulfill. It is a question for inductive treatment; and we need a statement of the grounds upon which the induction should proceed. We cite the following statement: “When a complex combination of heterogeneous phenomena is found to agree with the possibility of a future act, which was not contained beforehand in any of these phenomena in particular, this agreement can only be comprehended by the human mind by a kind of pre-existence, in an ideal form, of the future act itself, which transforms it from a result into an end—that is to say, into a final cause.”^[127] The principles here given may be set in a clearer light by the use of illustrations. The hull of a ship, masts, sails, anchors, rudder, compass, chart, have no necessary connection, and in relation to their physical causalities are heterogeneous phenomena. The future use of a ship is not contained in any one of them, but is possible through their combination. This combination in the fully equipped ship has no interpretation in our rational intelligence except in the previous existence of its use in human thought and purpose. The use of the ship, therefore, is not the mere result of its existence, but the final cause of its construction. We give illustrations from the same author.

^[127]Janet:Final Causes, p. 85.

“The external physical world and the internal laboratory of the living; being are separated from each other by impenetrable veils, and yet they are united to each other by an incredible pre-established harmony. On the outside there is a physical agent called light; within, there is fabricated an optical machine adapted to the light: outside, there is an agent called sound; inside, an acoustic machine adapted to sound: outside, vegetables and animals; inside, stills and alembics adapted to the assimilation of these substances: outside, a medium, solid, liquid, or gaseous; inside, a thousand means of locomotion, adapted to the air, the earth, or the water. Thus, on the one hand, there are the final phenomena called sight, hearing, nutrition, flying, walking, swimming, etc.; on the other, the eyes, the ears, the stomach, the wings, the fins, the motive members of every sort. We see clearly in these examples the two terms of the relation—on the one hand, a system; on the other, the final phenomenon in which it ends. Were there only system and combination, as in crystals, still, as we have seen, there must have been a special cause to explain that system and that combination. But there is more here; there is the agreement of a system with a phenomenon which will only be produced long after and in new conditions,—consequently a correspondence which cannot be fortuitous, and which would necessarily be so if we do not admit that the final and future phenomenon is precisely the bond of the system and the circumstance which, in whatever manner, has predetermined the combination.

“Imagine a blind workman, hidden in a cellar, and destitute of all intelligence, who, merely yielding to the simple need of moving his limbs and his hands, should be found to have forged, without knowing it, a key adapted to the most complicated lock which can possibly be imagined. This is what nature does in the fabrication of the living being.

“Nowhere is this pre-established harmony, to which we have just drawn attention, displayed in a more astonishing manner than between the eve and the light. ‘In the construction of this organ,’ says Trendelenburg, ‘we must either admit that light has triumphed over matter and has fashioned it, or else it is the matter itself which has become the master of the light. This is at least what should result from the law of efficient causes, but neither the one nor the other of these two hypotheses takes place in reality. No ray of light falls within the secret depths of the maternal womb, where the eye is formed. Still less could inert matter, which is nothing without the energy of light, be capable of comprehending it. Yet the light and the eye are made the one for the other, and in the miracle of the eye resides the latent consciousness of the light. The moving cause, with its necessary development, is here employed for a higher service. The end commands the whole, and watches over the execution of the parts; and it is with the aid of the end that the eye becomes the light of the body.”^{[128] [128]} Janet:Final Causes, pp. 42, 43.

Any denial of final cause in human agency would justly be thought irrational, or even insane. On what ground, then, shall we deny final cause in the adaptations of nature? Certainly not on the ground that organic structures are any less skillfully wrought, or with less fitness for their ends. “If it be supposed that the adaptations of external nature are less striking than the purposive actions of men, and give, therefore, less convincing indications of design, let the following remarkable passage from Mr. Darwin’s work on the Fertilization of Orchids furnish the reply: ‘The more I study nature, the more I become impressed with ever-increasing force with the conclusion, that the contrivances and beautiful adaptations slowly acquired through each part occasionally varying in a slight degree but in many ways, with the preservation or natural selection of those variations which are beneficial to the organism under the complex and ever-varying conditions of life, transcend in an incomparable degree the contrivances and adaptations which the most fertile imagination of the most imaginative man could suggest with unlimited time at his disposal.”^[129] Darwin elaborately illustrates these adaptations, and thus justifies their assignment to a place infinitely transcending all adaptations of human invention. That he accounts them to purely natural causes, and thus theoretically denies them all finality, does not in the least affect the sense of the passage in its application to the present question. There is still the indisputable fact, and to which Darwin is witness, that the adaptations of nature, of organs to functions in the orders of life, infinitely transcend all the adaptations of human mechanisms. If there is finality or purposive intelligence in the latter, how much more in the former.

^[129]Herbert:Modem Realism, pp. 315, 216.

It may be objected that, while mind is open to observation in human mechanisms, it is not open or observable in the organisms of nature. There is really no ground for such an objection. Beyond the consciousness of one’s own agency, the evidences of finality in divine and human agency stand in the same relation to our intelligence. We have no direct insight into the working of other minds. If one were present with the maker of a microscope through the whole process of its construction, nothing would be open to his observation but the physical phenomena of the work. The whole evidence of design would be given in the constructive character of the microscope and its adaptation to the end for which it was made. In the realm of life we have the same kind of evidence, and vastly higher in degree, of a purposive divine intelligence in the construction of organs and their wonderful adaptation to the important functions which they fulfill. Whatever light one’s own consciousness of a designing agency may shed upon the works of others, so as to make the clearer a designing agency therein, must equally shine upon the works of nature as the manifestation of a purposive divine intelligence. The objection damagingly recoils. The denial of a designing intelligence in the organic works of nature because it is not open to observation requires the denial of such Intelligence in ll human works except one’s own.

4. Objections to Finality in Organic Nature.—It is objected that there are in organic structures instances of malformation, of monstrosity even, which are inconsistent with a purposive divine agency. The objection can have no validity except against a false view of that agency, and therefore is groundless as against the true view. The doctrine of divine finality does not exclude secondary causes. The forces of nature are still realities, and operative in all the processes of organic formation. Hence, that these forces in their manifold interactions should, in rare instances, so modify their normal working as to produce abnormal or even monstrous formations is no disproof of a purposive divine agency. Modern science, however materialistic its ground, holds firmly the uniformity of nature—even such a uniformity as can allow no place for a divine agency. This uniformity is held for the organic realm of nature just as for the inorganic. Hence such science can give no better account of these abnormities than we have given—indeed, must give the very same account. Doubtless there are formative forces which determine the several orders of organic nature; but aberrancies of development are still possible. “Limitations and malformations may occur, for each living thing is not only subject to the law of its kind, but is under the dominion of other forces indifferent to the end and purpose of the organic individual.”^[130] “As to the difficulty caused by deviations of the germ, it would only be decisive against finality if the organism were presented as an absolute whole, without any relation to the rest of the universe—as an empire within an empire, the imperium in imperio of Spinoza. Only in this case could it be denied that the actions and reactions of the medium have brought about deviations in the whole. The organism is only a relative whole. What proves it is that it is not self-sufficient, and that it is necessarily bound to an external medium; consequently the modifications of this medium cannot but act upon it; and if they can act in the course of growth, there is no reason why they should not likewise act when it is still in the state of germ. There result, then, primordial deviations, while the alterations taking place later are only secondary; and if monstrosities continue to develop as well as normal beings, it is because the laws of organized matter continue their action when turned aside from their end, as a stone thrown, and meeting an obstacle, changes its direction and yet pursues its course in virtue of its acquired velocity.”^{[131] [130]} Muller:Christian Doctrine of Sin, vol. ii, p. 57.

^[131]Janet;Final Causes, p. 131. A further objection is made on the ground of useless and rudimentary organs. Seemingly, there are organs of the former class; certainly there are of the latter. Nor are they entirely without perplexity for the doctrine of finality. Any adequate discussion of the question would lead us far beyond our prescribed limits.^{[132] [132]} We refer to McCosh:Typical Forms, pp. 420-439; and especially to Janet:Final Causes, pp. 223-347.

Respecting useless organs: “The first are few in number in the present state of science. Almost all known organs have their proper functions; only a few oppose this law. The chief of these organs in the higher animals is the spleen. It seems, in effect, that this organ does not play a very important part in the animal economy, for numerous experiments prove that it can be extirpated without seriously endangering the life of the animal. We must not, however, conclude from this that the spleen has no functions ; and physiologists do not draw this conclusion from it, for they are seeking them, and are not without hope of finding them. An organ may be of service without being absolutely necessary to life. Every thing leads to the belief that the spleen is only a secondary organ; but the existence of subordinate, auxiliary, or subsidiary organs involves nothing contrary to the doctrine of finality.”^[133] The case is thus put in view of the chief organ whose special function or definite part in the economy of animal life is not apparent.

^[133]Janet:Final Causes, p. 325.

Respecting the rudimentary: “There are only two known explanations of the rudimentary organs: either the theory of the unity of type of Geoffroy Saint Hilaire, or the theory of the atrophy of the organs by default of habit of Lamarck and Darwin. But neither of these two explanations contradicts the theory of finality. We have seen, in fact, that there are two sorts of finality—that of use and that of plan. It is by no means implied in the theory that the second should necessarily be sacrificed or even subordinated to the first. The type remaining the same, one can understand that nature, whether by amplifying it, by inverting it, or by changing its proportions, variously adapts it according to different circumstances, and that the organs, in these circumstances rendered useless, are now only a souvenir of the primitive plan—not certainly that nature expressly creates useless organs, as an architect makes false windows from love of symmetry, but, the type being given, and being modified according to predetermined laws, it is not wonderful that some vestiges of it remain intractable to finality.

“As regards the second explanation, it can equally be reconciled with our doctrine; for if the organs have ceased to serve, and have thereby been reduced to a minimum, which is now only the remains of a previous state, it does not follow that they cannot have been of use at a former time, and nothing conforms more to the theory of finality than the gradual disappearance of useless complications.”^{[134] [134]} Janet:Final Causes, pp. 239, 230.

We have thought it well to present these questions mostly in the treatment of a theist who is familiar with the facts concerned, and both candid and capable in their logical treatment. The defense of a divine finality in the organic realm is satisfactory.

Another objection takes the form of an inference from the working of instinct. Animal instinct is viewed as a blind impulse, without prevision or plan, and yet as working to ends. The inference is, that the adaptations of organs to functions in organic nature neither evince nor require the agency of a divine mind. This inference is the objection to the doctrine of divine finality. In meeting this objection we are not concerned to dispute either the characterization of instinct as a blind impulse, or that it works to ends. Instances of the latter are numerous and familiar. One, however, must go to the naturalists for the fuller information. The inference here opposed to the doctrine of final cause is just the opposite of an a fortiori inference. An animal is a far higher order of existence than mere matter. Animal instinct is a far higher quality or force than any quality or force of mere matter. That animal instinct works to ends is no ground of inference that material forces, once potential in the primordial fire-mist, could found the orderly system of the universe, construct the organic world with all its wonderful adaptations to ends, and create the realm of mind with its marvelous powers and achievements. Indeed, animal instinct, instead of warranting any inference adverse to the doctrine of finality, demands finality as the only rational account of the many offices which it so wonderfully fulfills in the economy of animal life. The denial of rational intelligence in animal mechanisms is a corrected or second judgment. It is at once manifest that mere material forces could no more perform such work than they could wield the pencil of Raphael or the chisel of Angelo. The immediate judgment accounts such work to intelligence in the worker. This a second judgment corrects; not, however, in view of the work wrought, but simply in view of the animal worker as incapable of such intelligence. This fact requires, for any validity of the inference adverse to a law of teleology in the constitution of nature, the discovery that no being capable of such agency is operative therein. But this is the very question in issue. The necessary discovery has not been made; nor can it be made. Hence the inference drawn from the working of animal instinct against the doctrine of final cause in the cosmos is utterly groundless.

Animal mechanisms have an artificial form, not a growth form; and therein they have a special likeness to human mechanisms. Hence, if these works of instinct may warrant an inference adverse to finality, first of all they should so warrant in the case of human mechanisms to which they bear such special likeness. Can this be done? Never, as every sane mind knows. No more can they disprove a purposive intelligence in the constitution of organic nature. The teleological argument remains in its validity and cogency. The orderly system of nature, the manifold adaptations of means to cuds in the organic system, infinitely surpassing all the contrivances of human ingenuity, show the purposive agency of a divine mind. This is the only ground for any rationale of the cosmos. Short of a divine mind we have, at most, only matter and physical force, without any pretension of intelligence in either. No new characterization of matter can change these facts. Assuming for matter a second face, as some scientists do, is not endowing it with intelligence. This is not pretended, not even allowed. With its two faces it remains as blank of thought as the old one-faced matter of Democritus. Blind force must transform a chaotic nebula into the wonderful cosmos. Nor can it be allowed any pause with the formation of the orderly heavens and the wonderful organic world. Man, with all that may be called the mind of man, must have the same original. Then all his mechanisms, all his creations in the realms of science and philosophy and art, must be accounted to the same blind force. All purposive agency in man must be denied. If any one should here be stumbled by his own consciousness of such an agency, let him account this consciousness a delusion, and gladly, because such an agency is really out of harmony with the continuity of physical force, which, at any and all cost, must hold its way in the phenomena of mind, just as in the phenomena of matter. But the truth of a purposive agency in man will hold its place against all adverse theories of science. And so long as a human finality is admitted in the sphere of civilization the denial of a divine finality in the realm of nature must be irrational. The truth of such a finality is the truth of the divine existence.^[135]

^[135] For illustrations of finality in the cosmos—Paley:Natural Theology; Flint:Theism, lects. v, vi; Argyll:The Reign of Law; Chadbourne:Natural Theology; Tulloch:Theism; McCosh:Typical Forms; Janet:Final Causes.