XI WORLD-PURPOSE AND LIFE-PURPOSE (The Destiny of Man)

Among the manifold currents in the spiritual life of humanity there is one which we must now trace, and which we may call the elimination¹ of the concept of purpose from spheres to which it does not belong. Adaptation to purpose is a special kind of sequence of phenomena². Such adaptation is genuinely real only when, in contrast to the relation of cause and effect in which the antecedent event determines the subsequent, the subsequent event determines the antecedent. This is possible only in the sphere of human actions. Man performs actions which he first presents to himself in idea, and he allows himself to be determined³ to action by this idea. The consequent, i.e., the action, influences by means of the idea the antecedent, i.e., the human agent. If the sequence is to have purposive character, it is absolutely necessary to have this circuitous⁴ process through human ideas.

In the process which we can analyse into cause and effect, we must distinguish percept [191]from concept. The percept of the cause precedes the percept of the effect. Cause and effect would simply stand side by side in our consciousness, if we were not able to connect them with one another through the corresponding concepts. The percept of the effect must always be consequent upon the percept of the cause. If the effect is to have a real influence upon the cause, it can do so only by means of the conceptual factor. For the perceptual factor of the effect simply does not exist prior to the perceptual factor of the cause. Whoever maintains that the flower is the purpose of the root, i.e., that the former determines the latter, can make good this assertion only concerning that factor in the flower which his thought reveals in it. The perceptual factor of the flower is not yet in existence at the time when the root originates.

In order to have a purposive connection, it is not only necessary to have an ideal connection of consequent and antecedent according to law, but the concept (law) of the effect must really, i.e., by means of a perceptible process, influence the cause. Such a perceptible influence of a concept upon something else is to be observed only in human actions. Hence this is the only sphere in which the concept of purpose is applicable. The na?ve consciousness, which regards as real only what is perceptible, attempts, as we have repeatedly pointed⁵ out, to introduce perceptible factors even where only ideal factors can actually be [192]found. In sequences of perceptible events it looks for perceptible connections, or, failing to find them, it imports them by imagination. The concept of purpose, valid⁶ for subjective⁷ actions, is very convenient for inventing such imaginary connections. The na?ve mind knows how it produces events itself, and consequently concludes that Nature proceeds likewise. In the connections of Nature which are purely⁸ ideal it finds, not only invisible forces, but also invisible real purposes. Man makes his tools to suit his purposes. On the same principle, so the Na?ve Realist imagines, the Creator constructs all organisms. It is but slowly that this mistaken concept of purpose is being driven out of the sciences. In philosophy, even at the present day, it still does a good deal of mischief⁹. Philosophers still ask such questions as, What is the purpose of the world? What is the function (and consequently the purpose) of man? etc.

Monism rejects the concept of purpose in every sphere, with the sole exception of human action. It looks for laws of Nature, but not for purposes of Nature. Purposes of Nature, no less than invisible forces (p. 118), are arbitrary assumptions. But even life-purposes which man does not set up for himself, are, from the standpoint of Monism, illegitimate assumptions. Nothing is purposive except what man has made so, for only the realisation of ideas originates anything purposive. But an idea becomes effective, in the realistic sense, [193]only in human actions. Hence life has no other purpose or function than the one which man gives to it. If the question be asked, What is man’s purpose in life? Monism has but one answer: The purpose which he gives to himself. I have no predestined mission in the world; my mission, at any one moment, is that which I choose for myself. I do not enter upon life’s voyage with a fixed¹⁰ route mapped out for me.

Ideas are realised only by human agents. Consequently, it is illegitimate to speak of the embodiment of ideas by history. All such statements as “history is the evolution of man towards freedom,” or “the realisation of the moral world-order,” etc., are, from a Monistic point of view, untenable.

The supporters of the concept of purpose believe that, in surrendering it, they are forced to surrender also all unity¹¹ and order in the world. Listen, for example, to Robert Hamerling (Atomistik des Willens, vol. ii, p. 201): “As long as there are instincts in Nature, so long is it foolish to deny purposes in Nature. Just as the structure of a limb of the human body is not determined and conditioned by an idea of this limb, floating somewhere in mid-air, but by its connection with the more inclusive whole, the body, to which the limb belongs, so the structure of every natural object, be it plant, animal, or man, is not determined and conditioned by an idea of it floating in mid-air, but by the formative principle of the more [194]inclusive whole of Nature which unfolds and organises itself in a purposive manner.” And on page 191 of the same volume we read: “Teleology¹² maintains only that, in spite of the thousand misfits and miseries¹³ of this natural life, there is a high degree of adaptation to purpose and plan unmistakable in the formations and developments of Nature—an adaptation, however, which is realised only within the limits of natural laws, and which does not tend to the production of some imaginary fairy-land, in which life would not be confronted by death, growth by decay, with all the more or less unpleasant, but quite unavoidable, intermediary stages between them. When the critics of Teleology oppose a laboriously¹⁴ collected rubbish-heap of partial or complete, imaginary or real, maladaptations to a world full of wonders of purposive adaptation, such as Nature exhibits in all her domains¹⁵, then I consider this just as amusing——”

What is here meant by purposive adaptation? Nothing but the consonance of percepts within a whole. But, since all percepts are based upon laws (ideas), which we discover by means of thinking, it follows that the orderly coherence¹⁶ of the members of a perceptual whole is nothing more than the ideal (logical) coherence of the members of the ideal whole which is contained in this perceptual whole. To say that an animal or a man is not determined by an idea floating in mid-air is a misleading way of putting it, and the view which [195]the critic attacks loses its apparent absurdity¹⁷ as soon as the phrase is put right. An animal certainly is not determined by an idea floating in mid-air, but it is determined by an idea inborn¹⁸ in it and constituting the law of its nature. It is just because the idea is not external to the natural object, but is operative in it as its very essence, that we cannot speak here of adaptation to purpose. Those who deny that natural objects are determined from without (and it does not matter, in this context, whether it be by an idea floating in mid-air or existing in the mind of a creator of the world), are the very men who ought to admit that such an object is not determined by purpose and plan from without, but by cause and law from within. A machine is produced in accordance with a purpose, if I establish a connection between its parts which is not given in Nature. The purposive character of the combinations which I effect consists just in this, that I embody¹⁹ my idea of the working of the machine in the machine itself. In this way the machine comes into existence as an object of perception embodying²⁰ a corresponding idea. Natural objects have a very similar character. Whoever calls a thing purposive because its form is in accordance with plan or law may, if he so please, call natural objects also purposive, provided only that he does not confuse this kind of purposiveness with that which belongs to a subjective human action. In order to have a purpose, it is absolutely [196]necessary that the efficient cause should be a concept, more precisely²¹ a concept of the effect. But in Nature we can nowhere point to concepts operating as causes. A concept is never anything but the ideal nexus²² of cause and effect. Causes occur in Nature only in the form of percepts.

Dualism may talk of cosmic and natural purposes. Wherever for our perception there is a nexus of cause and effect according to law, there the Dualist is free to assume that we have but the image of a nexus in which the Absolute has realised its purposes. For Monism, on the other hand, the rejection²³ of an Absolute Reality implies also the rejection of the assumption of purposes in World and Nature.
[Contents]
Addition to the Revised Edition (1918).

No one who, with an open mind, has followed the preceding argument, will come to the conclusion that the author, in rejecting the concept of purpose for extra-human facts, intended to side with those thinkers who reject this concept in order to be able to regard, first, everything outside human action and, next, human action itself, as a purely natural process. Against such misunderstanding the author should be protected by the fact that the process of thinking is in this book represented as a purely spiritual process. The reason for rejecting the concept of purpose even for the spiritual world, so far as it lies [197]outside human action, is that in this world there is revealed something higher than a purpose, such as is realised in human life. And when we characterise as erroneous the attempt to conceive the destiny of the human race as purposive according to the pattern of human purposiveness, we mean that the individual adopts purposes, and that the result of the total activity of humanity is composed of these individual purposes. This result is something higher than its component²⁴ parts, the purposes of individual men.

1 elimination   

n.排除，消除，消灭

参考例句：

• Their elimination from the competition was a great surprise.他们在比赛中遭到淘汰是个很大的意外。
• I was eliminated from the 400 metres in the semi-finals.我在400米半决赛中被淘汰。

2 phenomena   

n.现象

参考例句：

• Ade couldn't relate the phenomena with any theory he knew.艾德无法用他所知道的任何理论来解释这种现象。
• The object of these experiments was to find the connection,if any,between the two phenomena.这些实验的目的就是探索这两种现象之间的联系，如果存在着任何联系的话。

3 determined   

adj.坚定的；有决心的

参考例句：

• I have determined on going to Tibet after graduation.我已决定毕业后去西藏。
• He determined to view the rooms behind the office.他决定查看一下办公室后面的房间。

4 circuitous   

adj.迂回的路的，迂曲的，绕行的

参考例句：

• They took a circuitous route to avoid reporters.他们绕道避开了记者。
• The explanation was circuitous and puzzling.这个解释很迂曲，让人困惑不解。

5 pointed   

adj.尖的，直截了当的

参考例句：

• He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
• She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。

6 valid   

adj.有确实根据的；有效的；正当的，合法的

参考例句：

• His claim to own the house is valid.他主张对此屋的所有权有效。
• Do you have valid reasons for your absence?你的缺席有正当理由吗？

7 subjective   

a.主观(上)的，个人的

参考例句：

• The way they interpreted their past was highly subjective. 他们解释其过去的方式太主观。
• A literary critic should not be too subjective in his approach. 文学评论家的看法不应太主观。

8 purely   

adv.纯粹地，完全地

参考例句：

• I helped him purely and simply out of friendship.我帮他纯粹是出于友情。
• This disproves the theory that children are purely imitative.这证明认为儿童只会单纯地模仿的理论是站不住脚的。

9 mischief   

n.损害，伤害，危害；恶作剧，捣蛋，胡闹

参考例句：

• Nobody took notice of the mischief of the matter. 没有人注意到这件事情所带来的危害。
• He seems to intend mischief.看来他想捣蛋。

10 fixed   

adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的

参考例句：

• Have you two fixed on a date for the wedding yet?你们俩选定婚期了吗？
• Once the aim is fixed,we should not change it arbitrarily.目标一旦确定，我们就不应该随意改变。

11 unity   

n.团结，联合，统一；和睦，协调

参考例句：

• When we speak of unity,we do not mean unprincipled peace.所谓团结，并非一团和气。
• We must strengthen our unity in the face of powerful enemies.大敌当前，我们必须加强团结。

12 teleology   

n.目的论

参考例句：

• Kant identifies with this view deeply,but he believes teleology finally.康德深以这一观点为是，但他最终相信目的论。
• In general it's hard to do without teleology when we're thinking about ethics,justice,and moral argument.当我们思考伦理、正义和道德时，一般很难不用到目的论。

13 miseries   

n.痛苦( misery的名词复数 )；痛苦的事；穷困；常发牢骚的人

参考例句：

• They forgot all their fears and all their miseries in an instant. 他们马上忘记了一切恐惧和痛苦。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• I'm suffering the miseries of unemployment. 我正为失业而痛苦。 来自《简明英汉词典》

14 laboriously   

adv.艰苦地；费力地；辛勤地；（文体等）佶屈聱牙地

参考例句：

• She is tracing laboriously now. 她正在费力地写。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• She is laboriously copying out an old manuscript. 她正在费劲地抄出一份旧的手稿。 来自辞典例句

15 domains   

n.范围( domain的名词复数 )；领域；版图；地产

参考例句：

• The theory of thermodynamics links the macroscopic and submicroscopic domains. 热力学把宏观世界同亚微观世界联系起来。 来自辞典例句
• All three flow domains are indicated by shading. 所有三个流动区域都是用阴影部分表示的。 来自辞典例句

16 coherence   

n.紧凑；连贯；一致性

参考例句：

• There was no coherence between the first and the second half of the film.这部电影的前半部和后半部没有连贯性。
• Environmental education is intended to give these topics more coherence.环境教育的目的是使这些课题更加息息相关。

17 absurdity   

n.荒谬，愚蠢；谬论

参考例句：

• The proposal borders upon the absurdity.这提议近乎荒谬。
• The absurdity of the situation made everyone laugh.情况的荒谬可笑使每个人都笑了。

18 inborn   

adj.天生的，生来的，先天的

参考例句：

• He is a man with an inborn love of joke.他是一个生来就喜欢开玩笑的人。
• He had an inborn talent for languages.他有语言天分。

19 embody   

vt.具体表达，使具体化；包含，收录

参考例句：

• The latest locomotives embody many new features. 这些最新的机车具有许多新的特色。
• Hemingway's characters plainly embody his own values and view of life.海明威笔下的角色明确反映出他自己的价值观与人生观。

20 embodying   

v.表现( embody的现在分词 )；象征；包括；包含

参考例句：

• Every instrument constitutes an independent contract embodying a payment obligation. 每张票据都构成一份独立的体现支付义务的合同。 来自口语例句
• Fowth, The aesthetical transcendency and the beauty embodying the man's liberty. \" 第四部分：审美的超越和作为人类自由最终体现的“美”。 来自互联网

21 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。

22 nexus   

n.联系；关系

参考例句：

• Shared ambition is the vital nexus between them.共同的志向是把他们联结在一起的重要纽带。
• Either way,the nexus between the consumer and consumer prices is important.无论那个方面，消费者与消费价格之间的关系是至关重要的。

23 rejection   

n.拒绝，被拒，抛弃，被弃

参考例句：

• He decided not to approach her for fear of rejection.他因怕遭拒绝决定不再去找她。
• The rejection plunged her into the dark depths of despair.遭到拒绝使她陷入了绝望的深渊。

24 component   

n.组成部分，成分，元件；adj.组成的，合成的

参考例句：

• Each component is carefully checked before assembly.每个零件在装配前都经过仔细检查。
• Blade and handle are the component parts of a knife.刀身和刀柄是一把刀的组成部分。