ESSAY-REVIEWS 607 



intended to catch fish. When a result is intended or purposed 

 it is also an end, and we conceive of the intended result as a 

 design. Animals secure designed results as well as men ; 

 but the larger number of results in the universe proceed neither 

 from the intentions of human beings nor from those of animals. 

 The universe itself, with all its processes, is one vast result. The 

 famous Argument from Design tries to show that many of 

 these results are also intentions, and therefore point to a 

 creative or sustaining mind. 



The story of the increasing discredit of the Teleological 

 Argument and our own reflection soon show that when we move 

 outside the circle of human and animal endeavour the attribu- 

 tion of intention or design to any result whatever becomes 

 highly doubtful and inconclusive. It is easy to perceive that 

 human contrivances are designs, because we know from our own 

 experience, and thence by an analogical extension to our fellows, 

 that men have purposes and execute them. A wider extension 

 of the analogy suggests the reasonable conclusion that many 

 animal actions are not only results but designs. The universe 

 into which we are born is rich in results that stubbornly refuse 

 to disclose themselves to analysis or logic as the consequence of 

 intentions. 



It is evident that convergence on a result does not necessarily 

 imply intention. In a recent novel an ingeniously conceived 

 convergence of causes raises the suspicion of murder. The 

 victim had hung a loaded and primed musket in his curio room. 

 There was a skylight in the roof ; and, at a particular time of a 

 particular day, the sun's rays were concentrated on the priming 

 of the musket. The owner happened to be in line with the 

 muzzle and was shot through the head. Here was a striking 

 convergence of causes — the mutual positions of man, musket, 

 skylight and sun, at the only moment of the year when it could 

 prove fatal, the loading of the piece and so on. The example 

 is taken from fiction, but it demonstrates that convergence on a 

 result need not imply an intention. The degree of complexity, 

 or arresting nature of the convergence, makes no difference to the 

 principle. We do not attribute design to the construction of an 

 astronomical telescope only because of its convergence on the 

 power to make stars more visible. We know that men desire 

 to study the stars, and we recognise in the instrument the 

 characteristic features of human inventions. A result does not 



