WHAT OF IT? AN OPEN LETTER TO STUDENTS 517 



equipment and minds. We frequently overlook these limitations. If, for 

 example, you look at a postage stamp through a compound microscope 

 you see only a tiny bit of the stamp, greatly magnified. In your small field 

 of view you see irregular and apparently meaningless blotches of colored 

 ink on a light background. If you move the stamp other patches of ink 

 come into view. Moving the stamp further you see still different ink spots. 

 But these spots do not seem to "add up to" anything. If you never saw a 

 postage stamp except through the high powers of a microscope you might 

 feel entirely justified in concluding that postage stamps have no pattern, 

 that their surface is covered with ink spots distributed at random, forming 

 no design. Here and there, on the other hand, you might by careful study 

 detect arrangements of spots suggesting that a pattern really exists. Yet 

 you would probably not be able to determine the actual nature of the de- 

 sign. We are much in that position as we look at the universe and at evo- 

 lution. What we perceive and what we understand are strictly limited by 

 the nature of our sense organs and of our minds. If we had different sense 

 organs and different minds our perceptions and understandings might be 

 quite other than they now are. So it behooves us to be cautious about 

 concluding that if we see no pattern in the universe there must necessarily 

 be no pattern. The design may be there; in fact we see evidences that it is. 

 Yet our sense organs and minds may have such limitations that we can no 

 more perceive the complete scope and nature of the design than a student 

 viewing a postage stamp with high-power magnification can make out the 

 face engraved upon it. 



What is the outcome of the matter? Personally, it is that I am impressed 

 with design permeating all things great and small. For me, design necessi- 

 tates a designer. And I suspect that the design has a goal — an objective 

 which gives significance and meaning to the whole. But I would not pre- 

 sume to state that I know what that objective is, and I suspect that I am not 

 mentally equipped to comprehend it. 



We are touching here on important matters. It is essential for each of us 

 to feel that his life has significance. A sense of being part of a great pattern 

 or plan contributes mightily to one's feeling of personal significance. I have 

 testified to belief that the universe and everything in it is characterized by 

 design and goal. Perhaps some of you are unable to follow me in this be- 

 lief. Does that mean that you must regard your own life as without signifi- 

 cance, as meaningless and without goal or objective? Not at all. As we 

 shall mention shortly, there has been added to biological evolution in the 

 case of man an entirely new form of evolution: social evolution. Social 

 evolution is dependent upon learning and the passing on of acquired wis- 



