It is not superfluous to add that there is nothing of the causal kind in these _pure phenomena_ of “Living Nature.” Materialism, in order to get a system for the pedestrian reasoner, has had to adulterate the picture of them with fitness-causes. But Goethe—who anticipated just about as much of Darwinism as there will be left of it in fifty years from Darwin—_absolutely_ excluded the causality-principle. And the very fact that the Darwinians quite failed to notice its absence is a clear indication that Goethe’s “Living Nature” belongs to actual life, "cause"-less and "aim"-less; for the idea of the prime-phenomenon does not involve causal assumptions of any sort unless it has been misunderstood in advance in a mechanistic sense. Footnote 101: Reigned 246-210 B.C. He styled himself “first universal emperor” and intended a position for himself and his successors akin to that of “Divus” in Rome. For a brief account of his energetic and comprehensive work see Ency. Brit., XI Ed., article _China_, p. 194.— _Tr._ ----- ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER IV THE PROBLEM OF WORLD-HISTORY II THE IDEA OF DESTINY AND THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSALITY CHAPTER IV THE PROBLEM OF WORLD-HISTORY II THE IDEA OF DESTINY AND THE PRINCIPLE OF CAUSALITY I Following out this train of thought to the end, we come into the presence of an opposition in which we perceive the key—the only key— wherewith to approach, and (so far as the word has any meaning at all) to solve, one of the oldest and gravest of man’s riddles. This is the opposition of the _Destiny Idea_ and the _Causality Principle_—an opposition which, it is safe to say, has never hitherto been recognized for what it is, the necessary foundation of world-building. Anyone who understands at all what is meant by saying that the soul is the _idea of an existence_, will also divine a near relationship between it and the _sure sense of a destiny_ and must regard Life itself (our name for the form in which the actualizing of the possible is accomplished) as directed, irrevocable in every line, fate-laden. Primitive man feels this dimly and anxiously, while for the man of a higher Culture it is definite enough to become his vision of the world— though this vision is communicable only through religion and art, never through notions and proofs.