40 From Matter to Man. 



causes, far from being insignificant, is thus of pro- 

 found importance in man's reading of the phenomenal 

 record ; for it involves all the difference between truth 

 and falsehood, intelligence and superstition, science 

 and metaphysics. Hence, instead of characterising 

 this elimination of chance as a triumph, it may be 

 stigmatised as one of the greatest banes in present 

 science and philosophy. 



In any case, its absence constitutes no vital prin- 

 ciple in a thorough theory of evolution. Even Darwin 

 fully established the importance of chance by demon- 

 strating that natural selection was not an intentional 

 selection on the part of nature or any of her agents, 

 but a mere chance or accidental survival of the fittest. 

 In other words, natural development happens solely 

 by accidental organisms fitting themselves accident- 

 ally to accidental changes in the accidental conditions 

 of a perpetually automatic and accidental existence. 



True, Darwin is himself confused on the point, for 

 he warns his readers that chance, as used by him, is 

 " a wholly incorrect expression, and merely denotes 

 our ignorance of the cause of each particular varia- 

 tion."* But even if we knew the cause of the 

 variation, provided the cause itself be accidental and 

 not intentional — that is, happening without the inter- 

 vention of a causer — the variation would still be 

 chance, because the result of chance intention. In 

 other words, the interaction of natural laws in matter 

 is bound to produce something ; but what that some- 



* Origin of Species, p. 131. 



