y to point to the clear relation of the whole
mechanism to the pendulum, to the fact that the one thing the clock
did always and without intermission was to tick, and that all the rest
of its phenomena were intermittent and subordinate to ticking! For
all this, it is certain that kitchen clocks are not contrived for the
purpose of making a ticking noise.

Thus the teleological theorist would be as wrong as the mechanical
theorist, among our death-watches; and, probably, the only death-watch
who would be right would be the one who should maintain that the
sole thing death-watches could be sure about was the nature of the
clock-works and the way they move; and that the purpose of the clock
lay wholly beyond the purview of beetle faculties.

Substitute "cosmic vapour" for "clock," and "molecules" for "works,"
and the application of the argument is obvious. The teleological
and the mechanical views of nature are not, necessarily, mutually
exclusive. On the contrary, the more purely a mechanist the speculator
is, the more firmly does he assume a primordial molecular arrangement,
of which all the phenomena of the universe are the consequences; and
the more completely is he thereby at the mercy of the teleologist,
who can always defy him to disprove that this primordial molecular
arrangement was not intended to evolve the phenomena of the universe.
On the other hand, if the teleologist assert that this, that, or
the other result of the working of any part of the mechanism of the
universe is its purpose and final cause, the mechanist can always
inquire how he knows that it is more than an unessential incident--the
mere ticking of the clock, which he mistakes for its function. And
there seems to be no reply to this inquiry, any more than to the
further, not irrational, question, why trouble oneself about matters
which are out of reach, when the working of the mechanism itself,
which is of infinite practical importance, affords scope for all our
energies?

Professor Haeckel has invented a new and convenient name,
"Dysteleology," for the study of the "purposelessnesses" which are
observable in living organisms--such as the multitudinous cases of
rudimentary and apparently useless structures. I confess, however,
that it has often appeared to me that the facts of Dysteleology cut
two ways. If we are to assume, as evolutionists in general do,
that useless organs atrophy, such cases as the existence of lateral
rudiments of toes, i