that we cannot even satisfactorily understand, much less explain, the
nature of an organism and its internal forces on purely mechanical
principles; it is so certain, indeed, that we may confidently say: 'It
is absurd for a man to imagine even that some day a Newton will arise
who will explain the origin of a single blade of grass by natural laws
not controlled by design'--such a hope is entirely forbidden us." In
these words Kant definitely adopts the dualistic and teleological
point of view for biological science.

Nevertheless, Kant deserted this point of view at times, particularly
in several remarkable passages which I have dealt with at length in my
Natural History of Creation (chapter 5), where he expresses himself in
the opposite, or monistic, sense. In fact, these passages would
justify one, as I showed, in claiming his support for the theory of
evolution. However, these monistic passages are only stray gleams of
light; as a rule, Kant adheres in biology to the obscure dualistic
ideas, according to which the forces at work in inorganic nature are
quite different from those of the organic world. This dualistic system
prevails in academic philosophy to-day--most of our philosophers still
regarding these two provinces as totally distinct. They put, on the
one side, the inorganic or "lifeless" world, in which there are at
work only mechanical laws, acting necessarily and without design; and,
on the other, the province of organic nature, in which none of the
phenomena can be properly understood, either as regards their inner
nature or their origin, except in the light of preconceived design,
carried out by final or purposive causes.

The prevalence of this unfortunate dualistic prejudice prevented the
problem of the origin of species, and the connected question of the
origin of man, from being regarded by the bulk of people as a