d all things with wisdom and
understanding,' the empty phrase about the purposive 'plan of structure' of
organisms is in this way completely disproved. Stronger arguments can
hardly be furnished against the customary teleology, or Doctrine of Design,
than the fact that all more highly developed organisms possess such
rudimentary organs." (Compare also Vol. II, p. 439: "The rudimentary organs
are among the most overwhelming proofs against the prevailing teleological
ideas of creation.") According to his opinion (Vol. I. p. 245), comparative
anatomy may no longer look for a "pre-arranged plan of construction by the
Creator." Besides, he calls it an anthropocentric error to look upon man as
a preconceived aim of creation and a true final purpose of terrestrial
life; and on page 17, of Vol. II, he supports this judgment by comparing
the relative shortness of the existence of mankind with the length of the
preceding geological periods: "Since the awakening of the human
consciousness, human vanity and human arrogance have delighted in regarding
Man as the real main-purpose and end of all earthly life, and as the centre
of terrestrial Nature, for whose use and service all the activities of the
rest of creation were from the first defined or predestined by a 'wise
providence.' How utterly baseless these {163} presumptuous anthropocentric
conceptions are, nothing could evince more strikingly than a comparison of
the duration of the Anthropozoic or Quaternary Epoch with that of the
preceding Epochs." And on page 234, Vol. II: "Hence it is that, in
accordance with the received teleological view, it has been customary to
admire the so-called 'wisdom of the Creator' and the 'purposive
contrivances of His Creation' especially in this matter. But on more mature
consideration it will be observed that the Creator, according to this
conception, does after all but play the part of an ingenious mechanic or of
a skillful watchmaker; just, indeed, as all these cherished teleological
conceptions of the Creator and His Creation are based on childish
anthropomorphism.... But it is exactly on this point that the history of
evolution proves most clearly that this received conception is radically
false. The history of evolution convinces us that the highly purposive and
admirably constituted sense organs, like all other organs, have developed
_without premeditated aim_."

Strauss, in his "The Old Faith and the New," gives to this idea its
philosoph