276 THE FITNESS OF THE ENVIRONMENT 



orderly results of law, or else we shall have to 

 turn them over to final causes * and the phi- 

 losopher. 



There is, in truth, not one chance in count- 

 less millions of millions that the many unique 

 properties of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, 

 and especially of their stable compounds 

 water and carbonic acid, which chiefly make 

 up the atmosphere of a new planet, should 

 simultaneously occur in the three elements 

 otherwise than through the operation of a 

 natural law which somehow connects them 

 together. There is no greater probability 

 that these unique properties should be with- 

 out due cause uniquely favorable to the 

 organic mechanism. These are no mere acci- 

 dents ; an explanation is to seek. It must be 

 admitted, however, that no explanation is at 

 hand. 



For the coincidence of properties itself a 

 rational explanation based upon known laws 

 of nature is perhaps conceivable. Attention 

 has already been called to the interconnection 

 of such properties as latent heat of vaporiza- 

 tion, thermal conductivity, molecular vol- 

 ume, the value of the van der Waals constant a, 



1 Bacon compared final causes to vestal virgins. "Like 

 them," he says, "they are dedicated to God, and are barren." 

 — "The Advancement of Learning," Book H, p. 142. 



