tigation must proceed, and this direction seems to be
assigned to it by the idea of _Ausloesung_.[8] The idea of _Ausloesung_,
which plays such an {156} important _role_ in physics, seems to be still
fruitful for the knowledge of psycho-physical life: bodily functions _loesen
aus_ spiritual ones, spiritual functions bodily ones. But so much the more
clearly does this theory show the limits of mechanism: mechanism reigns in
the world of bodies from the _Ausloesungen_ and to the _Ausloesungen_, with
which the mind induces the body to activity, and the body the mind; beyond
these limits causality still reigns, but no longer mechanism.

Now if thus the mechanical view of the world has within its own most proper
realm--the realm of material phenomena--its limits, even if they are
capable of being moved farther; and if it is without any scientific
acceptance in the realm of soul and mind: its usurpations reach the highest
possible degree when it pretends to {157} explain the last causes of
things. For from its very nature it follows that it is only able to explain
the reciprocal action of material things among themselves, when these
things in their finalities, or the causes of their qualities and
conditions, are already present, and the laws which they follow are already
active. As to the origin of those qualities or their causes, and of these
laws, this view leaves us entirely in the dark.

* * * * * {158}

CHAPTER II.

METAPHYSICAL CONCLUSIONS DRAWN FROM THE DARWINIAN THEORIES.

Sec. 1. _Elimination of the Idea of Design in the World.--Monism._

From this mechanical view of the world, quite a peculiar conclusion has
been recently drawn--not by Darwin, who does not give any opinion at all
about the mechanical view of the world, as such, or about its extension and
influence, nor, indeed, by Darwinians, not even by all followers of a
mechanical view of the world, but only by a part of them; namely, by those
who have in a high degree attracted to themselves the attention of reading
people. This conclusion is nothing less than the _elimination of the idea
of design in nature_. This phenomenon demands our attention. Heretofore,
the proof of plan, design, and end in nature, at large and in detail, was
looked upon as the most beautiful blossom and fruit of a thoughtful
contemplation of nature; it was the great and beautiful common property, in
the enjoyment of which the direct, the scientific, a