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, and the religious contemplation of nature peacefully participated. Now this view is to be given up forever, in consequence of nothing else than Darwin's selection theory. With an energy--we may say with a passionateness and confidence of victory--such as we were accustomed to see only in the most advanced advocates of materialism, Ludwig {159} Buechner, D. F. Strauss, Haeckel, Oskar Schmidt, Helmholtz, the editor of the "Ausland" and some of his associates, and our often-mentioned "Anonymus,"--in a common attack, assail every idea of a _conformity to an end_ in nature, every idea of a goal toward which the development at large and individually strives; in a word, the whole category of _teleology_.[9]