The Pontifical Gregorian University’s philosophy department considers Evolutionism incompatible with Mechanicism.¹ Not even animals function like a machine.² However, Mechanicism, although mentioned, is not a central consideration of the current course at the Gregorian University.

Our reason for considering the philosophy of evolution as explained by Mechanicism is that this theory was held by a number of promoters of evolution, among many different theories of evolution, including the Intelligent Design theories of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.³ Generally, the Positivists maintain that evolution can be philosophically explained by Mechanicism.⁴ This thesis makes an attempt to reply to Meristic Mechanicism, that the theory that evolution is all and only a mechanical process in matter.⁵