BIOLOGICAL PHILOSOPHY 409 



a master-watchmaker, a master-architect, a master-designer, a master- 

 potter. The number of obvious cases is so large that surely the argument 

 from this analogy is warranted. Even though it cannot be deduced that 

 the world has a purpose, still it seems highly probable." 



Critics usually grant that there is some evidence from the analogy and 

 admit that strictly speaking, the conclusion does have some degree of prob- 

 ability. But the degree is not high. For, while illustrations may be multiplied 

 tiresomely, they nevertheless are selected examples and represent limita- 

 tions of man's anthropomorphic perspective. Believers tend to see what 

 they look for and the evidence presented represents, even though inno- 

 cently, a "stacking of the cards." One might if he tried find even more 

 illustrations wherein no analogous purposiveness of parts of the world 

 were overwhelming, still it would not follow that the world as a whole 

 is purposive. The argument from purposiveness of parts of the world to 

 purposiveness of the whole world involves what logicians call the "fallacy 

 of composition." The fallacy in the argument, "This is a bunch of large 

 apples, therefore this is a large bunch of apples," and the fallacy in the 

 argument, "This world is made up of purposive beings, therefore this world 

 is purposively made up," is the same. 



Coinplexity . "Even though some patterns might occur accidentally, man 

 is too complex and intricate to have just happened. Man's chemical, physi- 

 cal, biological, physiological, psychological, economic, political, ethical, 

 aesthetic, and religious interrelations all fit together in multitudes of deli- 

 cate adjustments. Literary and artistic productions, governments and in- 

 dustries, moral codes and religious hierarchies do not just happen. Such 

 amazing intricateness presupposes purposiveness." 



Critics respond in four ways. First complexity is relative. To anything 

 that is relatively complex, something more simple would seem relatively 

 simple. And to anything that is relatively simple, something more complex 

 would seem relatively complex. The world is more complex than the minds 

 which try to comprehend it, so the complexity of the world seems rela- 

 tively complex to comparatively simple human minds. Relatively simple 

 minds may be easily amazed. Such amazement at complexity is hardly proof 

 of purposiveness in complexity. Secondly, the possibility that the world 

 is one of pure chance, is made up of an infinite number of elements, and 

 has endured or will endure for an infinite time suggests the possibility that 

 the number and complexity of possible combinations is infinite. If, then, in- 

 finite complexity may occur from pure chance, complexity hardly pre- 

 supposes purposiveness. Similarly, if the world is mechanically determined, 

 complexity of result merely presupposes complexity of cause, rather than 

 purposiveness. Critics contend that those who appeal to amazing complex- 

 ity as proof of purpose merely reveal their ignorance of the complexity 

 of mechanical causation. Finally, if complexity presupposes purpose surely 

 it presupposes complexity of purpose. It seems questionable whether any 



