130 HUMANISM via 



as soon as we have asserted the activity of intelligence. 

 So it has to be confessed that before the Argument from 

 Design has any theological value, three things have to be 

 shown (i) that intelligence, i.e. action directed to a 

 purpose, has been at work ; (2) that the intelligence has 

 not been that of any of the admitted existences ; and (3) 

 that from its mode of action this intelligence may fairly be 

 deemed divine. 



But if it is necessary to draw attention to a leap 

 which the theologian s logic is too apt to commit, it is no 

 less important to point out that the denial of the 

 Argument from Design logically leads much further than 

 its opponents commonly dare to go. For it would seem 

 that a complete denial of design in nature must deny 

 the efficacy of all intelligence as such. A consistently 

 mechanical view has to regard all intelligence as otiose, as 

 an epi-phenomenal by-product, or fifth wheel to the cart, 

 in absence of which the given results would no less have 

 occurred. And so, if this view were the truth, we 

 should have to renounce all effort to direct our fated and 

 ill-fated course adown the stream of time. Our con 

 sciousness would be an unmeaning accident. On the 

 other hand, if intelligence played the part in history 

 alleged by the second theory of its action, we might still 

 cherish a hope of steering the bark that carries our 

 fortunes at least into a temporary harbour ; if that of the 

 first theory, we might be moved to strain every muscle at 

 the behest of a helmsman who could envisage the goal 

 with unerring eye. 



We have, then, three alternatives, of which the old 

 Argument from Design undertook to represent one. 

 It was a simple-minded argument, as befitted a time 

 when the eventful history through which life has passed, 

 and the real intricacy of its phenomena, were as yet 

 scarcely suspected. It contented itself with observing 

 the variety and ingenuity of the means whereby living 

 beings attained their ends. The structure of the eye and 

 the ear, the prescience of instinct, the processes of growth 

 and birth, etc., provided it with inexhaustible material for 



