teleology thus far quoted can be
understood by us as attempts at rejecting the _necessity_ of acknowledging
a teleologically acting principle of the world--or, to express ourselves
more clearly, of a living God--after having once rejected the deepest
motive for this acknowledgment, namely: the self-testimony of God in the
human conscience and mind. But it is one thing to declare that we are not
obliged to accept a certain conclusion, and quite another to declare that
we are obliged to accept directly the opposite of such a conclusion. It is
one thing to declare that the phenomena in the world do not yet oblige us
to suppose an author with a preconceived plan, and still another to declare
that because I have found or still hope to find the causal connexion of
phenomena conformable to the end in view, no author with a preconceived
plan exists. This last assertion is one which the author of this work
confesses not to understand, and in whose conclusion he cannot agree.
Knowledge of the _origin_ of something certainly does not exclude the
question _wherefore_ it exists, and does not even take its place, and when
I have answered both questions satisfactorily, then I may and must justly
ask whether both that for which something exists and that by which
something exists, is intended or not, whether that which in the language of
causality I call cause and effect, also belongs to the category of
finality, according to which that very cause is at the same time called
means, and that very effect also design. {173} The one way of viewing
postulates the other as its necessary completion; and the teleological
point of view is so little an impediment for the causal, that we are much
more fully convinced scientifically of the correctness of the teleological
way of viewing, when first the causal chain of causes and effects lies
plain before our perception without any wanting links.

We still have to mention two monstrosities which, as it seems to us,
necessarily result from the rejection of teleology, although the opponents
of teleology contest the fact.

The one is the reduction to _chance_ of all single formations in the world.
It is true, necessity reigns in laws and their effect; but if the degree
and the sum of all qualities in the world are not based the one upon the
other, if especially the single organizations originate by the way of
natural selection, every coincidence of each single causal chain in the
world with any other ca