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

~876.j FINAL CAUSES. 301
`lation (the only rigorous methods' of science) the idea of the
universe-supposing that tbere is in it a presiding idea. When
intelligence has for its manifestation signs analogous to ours,
it can make itself known by such signs; but a work of art,
which of itself is not intelligent, and is only a work of an intelligence (or of something analogous), has no sign, no word, to
advise us that it is a work of art, and not the simple resultant
of complex and blind causes. A man speaks, and we have in
`that the means of knowing that it is a man; but an automaton
4oes not speak, and it is only by analogy, by comparison, by
`inductive interpretation, that we are able to know that this
automaton is not a freak of nature. The works of nature, if
they are the product of a latent and invisible art, analogous to
instinct, have no means of letting us know that they are works
of such an art, and it can only be by comparison with our
works that we thus decide. Thought in the universe, sup~osing that it manifests itself in any way, could then never be
recognized, except in the manner in which we claim to arrive
at it, that is to say, by analogical induction: it will never be
an object of experience and calculation; consequently, science,
if it wish, can always make it an abstraction; but because it
has made it an abstraction, and, in place of seeking the ra`tional signification of things, contents itself with showing the
~physical concatenation, can it, without an inexplicable illusion,
believe that it has done away with and refuted every teleo`logical supposition? To show, as it does, that these apparent
machines reduce themselves to elements endowed with certain
properties, is by no means to demonstrate that these machines are not the work of an industry, or an art, directed toward an end, for this art (reflective or not) can, on any hypothesis, construct these machines only by employing elements whose properties are such, that in combining they produce the desired effects. Final causes are not miracles; they
are not effects without causes. It is then not surprising that,
in tracing back organs to their elements, we find primordial
properties, whose combination or distribution produces these
complex effects, called animal functions. The wisest and most
`subtle art, be it the diVine art, will never produce a whole ex~ept by employing elements endowed with properties which
`make this whole possible. The problem for the thinker is to