orld be from God and of God, it and all that it contains
must be for some definite purpose and for special ends. It must be swayed
by eternal ideas, and must be subject to divine providence and guidance.
But naturalism, and even, it appears, natural science, declares: Neither
purposes nor ideas are of necessity to be assumed in nature. They do not
occur either in the details or in the whole. The whole is an absolutely
closed continuity of causes, a causal but blind machinery, in regard to
which we cannot ask, What is meant to be produced by this? but only, What
causes have produced what exists? This opposition goes deep and raises
difficulties. And in all vindication or defence of religion it ought
rightly to be kept in the foreground of attention, although the points we
have already insisted on have been wrongly overlooked. The opposition
concentrates itself to-day almost entirely around two theories of
naturalism, which do not, indeed, set forth the whole case, but which are
certainly typical examples, so that, if we analyse them, we shall have
arrived at an orientation of the fundamental points at issue. The two
doctrines are Darwinism and the mechanical theory of life, and it is to
these that we must now turn our attention. And since the best elucidation
and criticism of both theories is to be found in their own history, and in
the present state of opinion within their own school, we shall have to
combine our study of their fundamental principles with that of their
history.

We can here set forth, however, only the chief point of view, the gist of
the matter, which will continue to exist and hold good however the
analysis of details may turn out. For the kernel of the question may be
discussed independently, without involving the particular interests of
zoology or biology, though we shall constantly come across particular and
concrete cases of the main problem in our more detailed study.

The struggle against, and the aversion to ideas and purposes on the part
of the nature-interpreters is not in itself directed against religion. It
does not arise from any antagonism of natural science to the religious
conception of the world, but is primarily an antagonism of one school of
science to another, the modern against the mediaeval-Aristotelian. The
latter, again, was not in itself a religious world-outlook, it was simply
an attempt at an interpretation of the processes of nature, and especially
of evolution, which might