Darwin's dilemma 243 



(4) Fourthly, we are faced with two paradoxes, which I will 

 mention briefly. For Sir Julian, Reason ought to be satisfied 

 with a theory which seeks to explain everything, including 

 Reason itself, as arising from something which has nothing in 

 common with Reason, and for a reason no different from the 

 reason stones fall to earth. Notice the different meanings here 

 imposed upon this word " reason." It means one thing in " man 

 is endowed with reason "; it means another in " a man has no 

 reason to do this rather than that "; and something else again 

 when we say " the man fell for the reason that he slipped on 

 a banana peel." Sir Julian does not mean that things occur 

 for no reason at all; he intends that outside human activity 

 all things occur aimlessly and are accounted for without in- 

 voking intelligence behind them. He deserves credit for seeing 

 that, if purposeful action be held to exist in nature, this can 

 only be on the supposition that nature is the work of an 

 intellectual agent — that quodlibet opus naturae est opus ali- 

 cujus substantiae iyitelligentis — which is precisely what we hold 

 (let it be immediately added that the difficulty of our position 

 is not unappreciated by us) . In other words, so far as nature 

 is concerned, Sir Julian will understand rational to mean no 

 more than reason in " the reason stones fall "; with the conse- 

 quence that, compared to human reason or to any other 

 understanding or intellectual agency, all the things and events 

 of nature proceed from utter unreason, and for no other than 

 the reason stones fall to the earth. Human reason itself is 

 sufficiently accounted for as a product of blind agency. " Ex- 

 planation," " interpreting," " providing proof " can never be 

 more than an attempt to show that everything in nature is the 

 product of aimless " blind forces." Man, then, the avowedly 

 purposeful agent, came about for no purpose at all. This 

 unfortunate animal finds itself in the curious position of being 

 burdened with all the reason or intelligence there is, and with 

 all the purposeful action there is. He alone has reason, for a 

 reason which can only be blind .^ 



* " Natural Selection can determine the direction of change, but has no goal. 



