R. G. Collingwood, The Idea of History, 98:

Nature's purpose in creating any of her creatures is,
of course, the existence of that creature, the realization of its essence.
The teleology of nature is an internal teleology, not an external:
she does not make grass to feed cows, and cows to feed men;
she make grass in order that there should be grass, and so on.
Man's essence is his reason;
therefore she makes men in order that they should be rational.

Now it is a peculiarity of reason that
it cannot be completely developed in the lifetime of a single individual.
No one, for example,
can invent the whole of mathematics out of his own head.
He has to profit by the work already done by others.
Man is an animal that
has the peculiar faculty of profiting by the experience of others;
and he has this faculty because he is rational,
for reason is a kind of experience in which this is possible.