The machine becomes thereby an object of perception with the idea corresponding to it. Natural objects are also entities of this kind. Whoever calls a thing purposeful simply because it is formed according to a law, may, if he wish, apply the same term to the objects of nature. But he must not confuse this kind of lawfulness with that of subjective human action. For purpose to exist, it is absolutely necessary that the effective cause shall be a concept, in fact the concept of the effect.
Causes are present in nature only in the form of percepts.
Dualism may talk of world purposes and natural purposes. Wherever there is a systematic linking of cause and effect for our perception, the dualist may assume that we see only the carbon copy of a connection in which the absolute cosmic Being has realized its purposes. He should be protected from this by the fact that in this book the thinking process is presented as a purely spiritual one. If here the concept of purpose is rejected even for the spiritual world, lying outside human action, it is because something is revealed in that world which is higher than the kind of purpose realized in the human kingdom. And when we say that the thought of a purposeful destiny for the human race, modeled on human purposefulness, is erroneous, we mean that the individual gives himself purposes, and that the outcome of the working of mankind as a whole is compounded of these.