in active conflict with the
antagonistic theory of the "constancy of species," and had its more or
less decided adherents. Yet undoubtedly it was through and after Darwin
that the theory grew so much more powerful and gained general acceptance.

Darwinism and Teleology.

But the essential and most characteristic importance of Darwin and his
work, the reason for which he was called the Newton of biology, and which
makes Darwinism at once interesting and dangerous to the religious
conception of the world, is something quite special and new. It is its
radical opposition to teleology. Du Bois-Reymond, in his witty lecture
"Darwin versus Galiani,"(4) explains the gist of the matter. "Les des de
la nature sont pipes" (nature's dice are loaded). Nature is almost always
throwing aces. She brings forth not what is meaningless and purposeless,
but in great preponderance what is full of meaning and purpose. What
"loaded" her dice like this? Even if the theory of descent be true, in
what way does it directly help the purely scientific interpretation of the
world? Would not this evolution from the lowest to the highest simply be a
series of the most astonishing lucky throws of the dice by which in
perplexing "endeavour after an aim," the increasingly perfect, and
ultimately the most perfect is produced? And, on the other hand, every
individual organism, from the Amoeba up to the most complex vertebrate, is,
in its structure, its form, its functions, a stupendous marvel of
adaptation to its end and of co-ordination of the parts to the whole, and
of the whole and its parts to the functions of the organism, the functions
of nutrition, self-maintenance, reproduction, maintenance of the species,
and so on. How account for the adaptiveness, both general and special,
without _causae finales_, without intention and purposes, without guidance
towards a conscious aim? How can it be explained as the necessary result
solely of _causae efficientes_, of blindly working causes without a
definite aim? Darwinism attempts to answer this question. And its answer
is: "What appears to us 'purposeful' and 'perfect' is in truth only the
manifold adaptation of the forms of life to the conditions of their
existence. And this adaptation is brought about solely by means of these
conditions themselves. Without choice, without aim, without conscious
purpose nature offers a wealth of possibilities. The conditions of
existence act as a sieve. What chance