From Aristotle to Darwin and Bach Again: A Journey in Final Causality, Species, and Evolution by Etienne Gilson (review)

318 BOOK REVIEWS relativism is false, then there is a very real sense in which the ethical relativist is a moral skeptic and would not be able to believe any moral truths, that is, have any moral beliefs of his own. Whatever practical difficulties an ethical relativist would face when confronted with the fact that he cannot believe that any course of action is better than any other need not be considered here, but it certainly does not seem to be a comfortable situation. Jack W. Meiland and Michael Krausz's Relativism is an excellent book. Besides the essays discussed here, there are essays by Davidson, Doppelt, Lyons, and Harrison. There is also a useful bibliography and helpful index. The importance of the articles, together with the well-written introductions that the editors provide, makes this a book that evry philosopher should have at hand. DOUGLAS B. RASMUSSEN St. John's University New York City, New York From Aristotle to Darwin and Back Again: A Journey in Final Causality, Species, and Evolution. By ETIENNE GILSON. Translated by J. Lyon. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1984. Pp. xx + 203 + Index. $23.00 (cloth). This work is a translation of Gilson's D'Aristote aDarwin et Retour: Essai sur Quelques Constantes de la Biophilosophie (Paris: J. Vrin, 1971). The work has been rendered into very readable English by John Lyon, who has also done yeoman service in his completions, augmentations, and corrections of Gilson's original set of notes, tasks which sorely needed doing. There is also an Introduction by S.L. Jaki, providing a brief uverview of Gilson's career, philosophical interests and methods, and the contents and purpose of the work. Why the long delay in making this work available to English-speaking readers f I can see several reasons that might be offered for not bothering to translate the work at all. It lacks the strict coherence and integrity of intellectual development we are so used to finding in Gilson's written material. The central and longest (58 pages) chapter, Chapter Three, " Finality and Evolution," for instance, could easily stand as a separate rssay, as is true of some of the others. Also, Gilson is not as cautious in this work, when it comes to giving evaluations of the intentions of various authors, as he has been in the past. The harsh judgment he passes on Malthus, for example, does not seem fully justified, something noted by Lyon (p. 181). In addition, soon after its appearance in French, the work was outdated in certain ways. By the middle 1970s, Darwinian BOOK REVIEWS 319 scholarship was witnessing a new outburst of activity, such as the publication of Darwin's early notebooks, the re-evaluation of Darwin's supposed atheism, and the debate (which still continues) over punctuated equilibriumism and gradualism in which Gilson's work does not participate. However, in my opinion, these reasons for not publishing the work in English are by and large irrelevant. Its main strength, after all, is its powerful x-ray vision approach to certain constant problems in the philosophy of animate nature. I see two main themes in the book. One is the emphasis upon the fact of teleology in nature, a fact to which those who verbally denounce teleo~ogy (usually because they misunderstand it in the first place) are forced to return over and over again. The other is the role of anthropomorphism in the rational evaluation of the relationship between art and nature. In an earlier work, God and Philosophy, Gilson had pointed out that anthropomorphism in natural theology was really not such a bad thing, because it is quite unavoidable, and in fact serves the very fundamental purpose of preserving a minimal personalism (the essential presence of intellect and will) in our understanding of superhuman beings. Chapter Four of God and Philosophy is very much concerned with anthropomorphism and teleology in contemporary thought, and the present work can be viewed as an expansion, up-dating, ru1d development of that chapter in reference to the history of modern (1750-1970) biology. Roughly speaking, the work under review pictures Aristotle's four causes as being divided up, so to...