in nature and in society, by 'a
principle of movement and progress conflicting with a principle of
inertia.'[13]

Aristotle, in words that are strikingly modern, raises the very question
at issue here.[14] He asks whether we can suppose that nature does not
aim at the good at all, but that variations arise by chance and are
preserved just because they are useful, and he scouts the idea that
chance could do more, as Zeller says, than 'bring about isolated and
abnormal results'. He chooses instead the conception of purpose and
effort, and this in spite of the difficulties in conceiving a purpose
and an effort that are not definitely conscious. The sort of thing that
is in Aristotle's mind when he speaks of nature aiming at the good,
comes out in a passage by Edward Carpenter in his little book _The Art
of Creation_. Carpenter plunges boldly and compares the principle that
makes a tree grow and propagate its kind with the impulse that makes a
man express himself. Man, he says,

has a Will and Purpose, a Character, which, do what you
will, tends to push outwards towards expression. You put
George Fox in prison, you flog and persecute him, but the
moment he has a chance he goes and preaches just the same as
before.... But take a Tree and you notice exactly the same
thing. A dominant Idea informs the life of the Tree;
persisting, it forms the tree. You may snip the leaves as
much as you like to a certain pattern, but they will only
grow in their own shape. Finally, you may cut the tree down
root and branch and burn it, but, if there is left a single
seed, within that seed ... lurks the formative ideal, which
under proper conditions will again spring into life and
expression.[15]

Aristotle would have endorsed almost every word of this. In his pithy
way, speaking of the distinction between natural and artificial objects,
he says himself that if you planted a wooden bed and the wood could
still grow, it would grow up, not a bed, but a tree.[16]

He would not have gone so far as to talk about the _Will_ of a tree, but
he would have admitted that what made the tree grow was the same sort of
thing as Will. And in one respect he goes farther than Edward Carpenter
does. For he considers that not only growth but even the movement of
natural things through space is somehow an expression of a tendency
towards the good and the divine, a tendency which, when conscious