CHAPTER V - EVOLUTION AND CREATION

Summary

THAT teleology is not hostile to efficient causes we have already seen reason to believe. Still less does it conflict with efficient causes combined in a system. In fact, as we advance along the line of march which science has taken, the idea of teleology becomes more and more luminous, until in ethics and theology it becomes indispensable. We quite admit that the idea is anthropomorphic, that it does not quite enable us to view all things sub specie eternitatis. We admit that we are unable to rise to the great height of one who is present at all the operations of the world, for whom beginning and end are not, to whom all time is a nunc stans. But, then, that objection applies to every one who is compelled to think under the conditions of space and time, and applies equally to those who affirm causation of any kind. Efficient causes also come under the condition of before and after; and if to think of efficient causation is valid and legitimate, final causation is also valid and legitimate.

We might therefore start with the state of the earth as it now is, and might ask what are the conditions under which rational life can exist at the present time. We might analyse these conditions, and the analysis would give us at least the various sciences in the order in which they now exist.