ESSAY-REVIEWS 609 



the design they directly exhibit, but because of the value they 

 present. The attempt of this argument is to prove design 

 through value. " Value (we assert) is lost if design be absent." 

 This line of argument seems to be even more vulnerable 

 than the more direct proof of design. A careless Croesus drops 

 a sovereign and a beggar picks it up. It is a valuable find, but 

 the beggar would scarcely argue that he was on this account 

 intended to have the coin. His actions would show pretty 

 plainly that he assumed the contrary. Mr. Balfour's argumenta- 

 tive route is to be no primrose path. Accident, as well as 

 design, may, and frequently does, originate value. The reputed 

 Phoenician discovery of glass, an unintentional result proving 

 a valuable process, indicates that it may be unnecessary to look 

 for an intention behind the values inserted into human life. 

 Glass is a very valuable commodity ; but the fact that it is so 

 valuable is no reason for supposing that its accidental discovery 

 by the Phoenicians really resulted from the intention of a pre- 

 siding intelligence. Design is no more marked off by value than 

 it is established by the convergence of causes on a specific result. 

 Mr. Balfour seems to be faintly aware of the unconvincing- 

 ness of arguing from value to design when he selects from the 

 total mass of aesthetic interests a chosen few to bear the weight 

 of his contention. He suggests that neither those " aesthetic 

 interests . . . roused by objects we deem relatively trivial " 

 nor those originated " by objects which are admittedly rare and 

 splendid " can " fit comfortably into a purely naturalistic frame- 

 work," but he admits that only the latter " demand a source 

 beyond and above the world of sense and perception." This 

 seems very much like the argument of a beggar that the shilling 

 he finds might have been dropped by chance, but the sovereign 

 in the gutter was put there intentionally for his benefit. This 

 is not a mere parody of the argument. The greater value of 

 the sovereign does not place it in a different category from the 

 shilling. We valuate aesthetic interests qualitatively as well as 

 quantitatively, it is true ; but it is not at all clear that we 

 must refer our highest aesthetic interests to providential design 

 because they possess for us the highest degree of appeal. 



Nor is it at all evident that retention of value depends on 

 whether we attribute our aesthetic interests to chance or to pro- 

 vidential design. Even if it did we are not entitled to argue 

 that because our aesthetic interests lose value when separated 



