608 SCIENCE PROGRESS 



display intention simply because it is the focus of a convergence, 

 however intricate. 



Mr. Balfour admits that " from a consideration of inanimate 

 nature alone it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to infer design." 

 The universe is full of results — simple results, complex results, 

 results that have contributed to man's existence and progress. 

 But no logical link compels us to regard even these favouring 

 results as designed. " The mere existence of natural law is 

 not, as it seems to me, a sufficient basis for the argument ; we 

 require also that these laws should combine to subserve an 

 end." Theism has, therefore, endeavoured to select certain 

 results that can be convincingly construed as ends. " They 

 have always sought for proofs of contrivance rather among the 

 living than among the dead." It is not, however, clear that 

 Theism is the only alternative to the failure of mechanism to 

 explain the organic world, as Mr. Balfour appears to think. It 

 may be perfectly true that " no room can be found for psychical 

 states at all," in a " strictly determined physical system," 

 without these psychical states being necessarily the consequence 

 of design. Mr. Balfour, indeed, seems to involve himself in a 

 contradiction with reference to these same psychical states. 

 " A world where all energy suffers inevitable degradation, con- 

 sidered by itself, appears atheistic on the face of it ; nor can 

 even life, consciousness, or thought redeem it, if they, too, are 

 doomed to perish when further transformations of energy 

 become impossible . . ." he writes, and then subsequently 

 cites the incommensurabilities of psychical states with trans- 

 formations of energy and movements of matter as an indication 

 of design. It is, at any rate, a far cry from incommensur- 

 ability to design. These psychical states, including their own 

 private intentions, may be no more than results, results com- 

 pelling no demand even for " the barest creed which acknow- 

 ledged that the universe, or part of it, showed marks of intelli- 

 gent purpose." Theism, or design, in short, is not the only alter- 

 native to mechanism. Mr. Balfour thinks that this " barest 

 creed " is demanded by the design manifest in certain selected 

 results, those results, in particular, that we call psychical ; but 

 it is so bare that he prefers to alter the incidence of the argu- 

 ment and " stress is laid, not upon contrivances . . . but on 

 the character of certain results obtained." A selection is made 

 of certain results that support Theism, not primarily because of 



