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

~876.] FINAL CAUSES. 313
of epigenesis it is formed little by' little; but, because a work
of art is formed little by little (which is but the law of time
the law of all things transient and perishable), it does not at
~all follow that it is not a work of art; and gradual evolution
no less demands a directing and creative idea, than would the
sudden hatching of the whole, supposing that such a hatching
were possible. Thus, because we may say with M. Claude
Bernard, that a creative and directing idea presides in the or
`ganism, and with Muller and Kant, that the whole orders and
`conditions the parts, it by no means follows that this creative
idea must be pictured beforehand, sensible to vision in the
p rimitive kernel of the future being. Because I do not see in
advance the plan of a house, it does not follow that there is
~no plan of it. ~In a picture drawn by a painter, the first ou~
~ines or the first touches do not contain the finished picture,
~and are not its preformation; nevertheless, in this case it is'
certainly the idea of the whole which determines the appearance of these first parts. In like manner, the idea may be inherent in the entire organism, without being shown exclusively
`in the egg or germ, as if the initial point of the organization
~were obliged to be in this regard more privileged than the
other parts of the organism.
As to the difficulty drawn from the deviations of the germ,
it would only be decisive against finality, if the organism were
presented as an absolute whole, without any relation to the
rest ~f the universe, an empire in an empire, im~cr~~m Zn ZmJcrio, as Spinoza has said. There would here be a contradiction only in case the actions and reactions of the medium
should cause deviations in this absolute whole. But organism
is only a relative whole: this is proved by the fact, that it is
`not sufficient to itself, and that it is necessarily bound to some
~extenor medium; hence the modifications of this medium can
not but act upon it; and if they can act in the course of
`growth, there is no reason why they should not act equally
while it is stilf in the state of a germ. This would result in
primordial deviations, while the alterations which take place
`later are only secondary, and if monstrosities continue to develop as well as normal beings, it is because the laws of organized matter continue their action while they are accidentally
~urned from their object, just as a hurled stone may meet an