em
trivial, into weighty arguments. Similarly it may be that the success of
the mechanical interpretation in regard to isolated processes may make its
validity for many other allied processes certain, even though there is no
precise proof of this. But we cannot regard this as a final demonstration
of the applicability of the mechanical theory, since the same technical
instinct in other experts leads them to reject the whole hypothesis.

But here we are met with something surprising. May it not be that while we
are impelled on general grounds to contend against the mechanical
interpretation of vital phenomena, we are not so impelled on _religious_
grounds? May it not be that the instinct of the religious consciousness is
misleading when it impels us--as probably every one will be able to certify
from his own experience--to rebel against this mechanisation of life, the
mechanical solution of its mysteries? Lotze, the energetic antagonist of
"vital force," the founder of the mechanical theory of vital processes,
was himself a theist, and was so far from recognising any contradiction
between the mechanical point of view and the Christian belief in God, that
he included the former without ceremony in his theistic philosophical
speculations. His view has become that of many theologians, and is often
expressed in a definition of the boundaries between theology and natural
science. According to the idea which was formulated by Lotze, and
developed by others along his lines, the matter is quite simple. The
interest which religion has in the processes of nature is at once and
exclusively to be found in teleology. Are there purposes, plans, and ideas
which govern and give meaning to the whole? The interest of natural
science is purely in recognising inviolable causality; every phenomenon
must have its compelling and sufficient reason in the system of causes
preceding it. All that is and happens is absolutely determined by its
causes, and nothing, no _causae finales_ for instance, can co-operate with
these causes in determining the result. But, as Lotze says, and as we have
repeatedly pointed out, causal explanation does not exclude a
consideration from the point of view of purpose, and the mechanical
interpretation does not do so either. For this is nothing more than the
causal explanation itself, only carried to complete consistency and
definiteness. Purposes and ideas are not efficient causes but results.
Where, for instance, the