pend, to an eternal teleology, and see the order of the world that
leads to this illuminated by everlasting meaning and by providence.

Teleological and Scientific Interpretations are Alike Necessary.

(7.) Thus religion confidently subjects the world to a teleological
interpretation. And to a teleological study in this sense the strictly
causal interpretations of natural science are not hostile, but
indispensable. For how do things stand? Natural science endeavours by
persistent labour to comprehend the whole of the facts occurring in our
world, up to the existence of man, as the final outcome and result of an
age-long process of evolution, attempts also to follow this process ever
higher up the ladder of strictly causal and strictly law-governed
sequences, and finally to connect it with the primary and simplest
fundamental facts of existence, beyond which it cannot go, and which must
simply be accepted as "given." If these results of this causally
interpreted evolution reveal themselves to our inward power of valuation
as full of meaning and value, indeed of the deepest and most incomparable
value, the causal mode of explanation is in no way affected, but its
results are all at once placed in a new light and reveal a peculiarity
which was previously not discoverable, yet which is their highest import.
They become a strictly united system of _means_. And purposefulness as a
potentiality is thus carried back to the very foundation and "beginning,"
to the fundamental conditions and primary factors of the cosmos itself.
The strict nexus of conditions and causes is thus nothing more than the
"endeavour after end and aim," the carrying through and realisation of the
eternal purpose, which was implicit potentially in the fundamental nature
of things. The absolute obedience to law, and the inexorableness of chains
of sequence are, instead of being fatal to this position, indispensable to
it. When there is a purpose in view, it is only where the system of means
is perfect, unbroken, and absolute, that the purpose can be realised, and
therefore that intention can be inferred. In the inexplicable datum of the
fundamental factors of the world's existence, in the strict nexus of
causes, in the unfailing occurrence of the results which are determined by
both these, and which reveal themselves to us as of value and purpose,
teleology and providence are directly realised. The only assumptions are,
that it is possible to judge