 Kant’s writings on natural teleology take for granted the biological theories of his time, which were very different from those of the present day. While theorists at the time that Kant was writing were prepared to consider the possibility that present-day species evolved out of earlier and more primitive forms of life—and even out of mere matter as such—they had no inkling of Darwin’s theory of natural selection, nor of Mendel’s laws of inheritance. Moreover, it was widely assumed that living beings were made of a different kind of matter from that found elsewhere in the universe; and while some biological theorists rejected this “vitalist” assumption there was, as yet, no experimental evidence against it. Kant himself follows Blumenbach in assuming a distinctive kind of living matter which can be understood only in teleological terms. It might seem implausible, then, that Kant’s views could have any relevance to contemporary biological thought.