Mechanistic Replacement of Purpose in Biology

Extract

Since essence examined from one point of view can always be dissolved into relationship, and since the act of this dissolution—which is the general analyzing act of science—seems at first to explain the essence or transcending cause (for as we move toward it the newly envisaged relationship may appear to replace and to render unnecessary the metaphysical whole), therefore in every science and with every such new discovery of material determining agents, there will be a period of enthusiasm when real explanation and cause seem to be revealed. But after the discovered relationship has been examined for a time, it becomes apparent both that further unexplored relationships are required to connect these agents we have found with the operations they are supposed to effect, and that a new transcendental unity must be postulated of the whole to bind the agents into the ordered pattern they maintain.