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Purpose in Evolution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

J. Arthur Thomson
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Extract

Age after age, and often from the depths of human nature, the question has arisen whether there is some transcendental Purpose in the making of the world. Is there some recondite meaning in it all, and if so, can we get any glimpse of what it is? More especially, is it legitimate to say that Nature is Nature for a Purpose? Was there a Purpose, or something dimly analogous to a Purpose, in the origination of the process of Evolution? Is Evolution permeated by or immediately controlled by Purpose? Or does it simply express a purpose which determined its direction from the first? We know a little about the tactics of Evolution, but is there a strategy? If not, why are we always groping after it?

Type
Articles
Information
Philosophy , Volume 6 , Issue 22 , April 1931 , pp. 153 - 165
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1931

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