RATIONALISM AND THE IDEA OF GOD 215 



This may be illustrated by a common fallacy — 

 the ascription of personality to God on the ground 

 that a purpose exists in the universe. Paley saw 

 proof of this purpose in adaptations among organ- 

 isms. Modern theologians, driven from this posi- 

 tion by Darwin, taHe refuge with Bergson in the fact 

 of biological progress. But this, too, can be shown 

 to be as natural and inevitable a product of the strug- 

 gle for existence as is adaptation, and to be no more 

 mysterious than, for instance, the increase in effec- 

 tiveness both of armour-piercing projectile and 

 armour-plate during the last century. The time has 

 gone by when a Paley could advance his "carpenter" 

 view of God; when a Fellow of the Royal Society 

 could be sure of general approval, as could D. Front 

 in his Bridgewater Treatise, with a work entitled 

 Chemistry, Meteorology, and the Function of Di- 

 gestion, considered with reference to Natural The- 

 ology, or when a distinguished geologist like Buck- 

 land (almost foreshadowing later writers of a cer- 

 tain type on labour questions) could ascribe to a 

 Beneficent Designer the existence of Carnivora, 

 as a means to the increase of the "Aggregate of Ani- 

 mal Enjoyment," and solemnly open a sentence such 

 as "while each suffering individual is soon relieved 

 from pain, it contributes its enfeebled carcass to the 

 support of its carnivorous benefactors." 



No — purpose is a psychological term; and to as- 

 cribe purpose to a process merely because its results 

 are somewhat similar to those of a true purposeful 



