Final Causes and Contemponeous Physiology (translated from the Revue des duex Mondes) [pp. 291-321]

1876.] FINAL CAUSES. 293
is popular philosophy. This is a great encomium. True philosophy is that which knows how to make itself everything to all
men, and which can speak both the language of the school and
of the fireside. There is nothing more sublime than the philosophy of Plato, and, at the same time, how popular it is. A
half thought carries us away from popular philosophy; deeper
thought brings us back to it. Bossuet has said: "Malheur ~
la connaissance stenle, qui ne se tourne pas a' aimer." It may
also be said: Woe to the pure philosophy which does not contribute to the instruction and improvement of men.
Neveftheless, criticism and logic do not lose their rights.
Popular philosophy aims chiefly at results; learned philosophy
searches after and examines principles. The whole of natural
theology rests on the analogy between human industry and
the industry of nature; between the human method and the
method of nature. Our attention is called to a palace, a statue,
a picture, a watch; at each of these examples, Fenelon asks if
it can be the result of cbance; then, returning to the universe,
he describes it to us, more beautiful than a palace, more wisely
joined together than any machine made by man, and from the
perfection of the work he concludes to the perfection of the
workman. Voltaire, also, saw nothing in the universe but a
"clock," and he was astounded that any one could believe " that
this clock had no clock-maker." Is there any foundation for such
analogies? Does science here come to the support of philosophy, or is it contrary to it? Does it permit us to ascribe designs and combinations to the universal cause, or does it forbid
this hypothesis? We are accustomed to attach great imporL
ance to this confronting of philosophy and science, and it
seems to us that this is always very profitable to both. Let
us interrogate, then, the sciences, and chiefly that one which
seems to be the proper domain of final cause; let us consult
on the question which we are discussing, the most authoritative
masters of contemporaneous physiology.
I.
Ancient physiology, following the footsteps of Galen, occu
pied itself principally with what was called the 2lSC of parts
that is to say, the use of organs and their adaption to func
tions. Struck with the admirable harmony, which for the most