for the philosopher is to discover a meaning in this
senseless current of human actions, so that the history of creatures who
pursue no plan of their own may yet admit of a systematic form. The clew
to this form is supplied by the predispositions of human nature.

I have stated this problem almost in Kant's words, and as he might have
stated it if he had not introduced the conception of final causes. His
use of the postulate of final causes without justifying it is a defect
in his essay. He identifies what he well calls a stream of tendency with
"a natural purpose." He makes no attempt to show that the succession of
events is such that it cannot be explained without the postulate of a
purpose. His solution of the problem is governed by this conception of
finality, and by the unwarranted assumption that nature does nothing in
vain.

He lays down that all the tendencies to which any creature is
predisposed by its nature must in the end be developed perfectly and
agreeably to their final purpose. Those predispositions in man
which serve the use of his reason are therefore destined to be fully
developed. This destiny, however, cannot be realised in the individual;
it can only be realised in the species. For reason works tentatively,
by progress and regress. Each man would require an inordinate length of
time to make a perfect use of his natural tendencies. Therefore, as life
is short, an incalculable series of generations is needed.

The means which nature employs to develop these tendencies is the
antagonism which in man's social state exists between his gregarious
and his antigregarious tendencies. His antigregarious nature expresses
itself in the desire to force all things to comply to his own humour.
Hence ambition, love of honour, avarice. These were necessary to raise
mankind from the savage to the civilised state. But for these antisocial
propensities men would be gentle as sheep, and "an Arcadian life would
arise, of perfect harmony and mutual love, such as must suffocate and
stifle all talents in their very germs." Nature, knowing better than man
what is good for the species, ordains discord. She is to be thanked
for competition and enmity, and for the thirst of power and wealth. For
without these the final purpose of realising man's rational nature would
remain unfulfilled. This is Kant's answer to Rousseau.

The full realisation of man's rational nature is possible only in
a "universal civil society" founded o