244 CHARLES DEKONINCK 



Now 1 am all in favor ol' economy in explanation. If the 

 existence of what Darwin called " good species " (notice his 

 use of the word " good ") can be accounted for by, say, random 

 mutations, then random mutations it is. But can these species 

 be so accounted for.^^ And, by the way, just what does this word 

 " random " mean.?^ I know what it means in " to throw dice 

 at random." I deliberately so throw them, just as when I aim 

 randomly distributed pellets at a duck. In these cases there 

 is no opposition between randomness and purpose. If the word 

 must be applied to nature, it will either become a metaphor 

 or acquire an extended meaning. And what do certain bi- 

 ologists intend when saying that all species are the product of 

 random mutations and, in the same breath, that therefore they 

 are products of mere chance.'^ Does randomness mean the 

 same as chance.'' * If so, we are imposing a new meaning on 



It pushes evolution blindly from behind." Julian Huxley, " Man's Place in Nature," 

 in The Destiny of Man (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1959), p. 19. In the 

 Sunday Times (Feb. 3, 1957) Sir Julian writes: " The real wonder of life is the 

 fact that the automatic and non-purposeful process of biological evolution should 

 eventually have generated true purpose in the person of the human species." 



* Elsewhere I expressed some difficulty in understanding Sir Julian Huxley's 

 position in this matter. Take, for instance, the following statement: " Natural 

 Selection is an ordering principle. It takes the disorderly material provided by 

 ' random ' or ' chance ' variation, builds it up into orderly patterns of organization, 

 and guides it into ordered paths of change." (" Man's Place in Nature," ed. cit., 

 p. 14) As J. W. C. Wand remarks in the same booklet (p. 42) : we believe " that 

 ' the mechanism which directs the course of evolution ' and its ' ordering principle ' 

 are guided by a divine mind to a good and beneficent purpose." Plainly, Sir Julian 

 sees no need for such a mind. Still, whether or not randomness and chance are for 

 him the same, whether chance here means pure chance or something less than pure 

 chance, he indeed insists upon an ordering, guiding principle. Might we, in order to 

 avoid all suggestion of purpose, take the " ordering " or " guiding " as having the 

 meaning these words would have when a river-bed is spoken of as channelling, and 

 as directing and guiding its waters to the sea.'' But the analogy cannot stand. For 

 the river-bed too, was somehow formed at random (we would say ex necessitate 

 materiae), and the sea itself, is a random distribution. One ought not to ask Sir 

 Julian " How do you account for the ordering principle? " for the reply would likely 

 be " It's just there." No, we are driven back to the monkeys pounding at random. 

 Now, when they allegedly produce all extant literature, are their random poundings 

 led to this by an "ordering" and "guiding" principle? Sir Julian must surely 

 admit that the terms are now vividly out of place. The principle now cannot be 



