PURPOSEFUL STRUCTURES 69 



tion of their kind, sometimes something else — and 

 they employ means to achieve that end. They are, 

 that is to say, purposive in their nature. 



Evidence of purposiveness is also furnished by 

 the wonderful organs of adaptation, root-tips, 

 leaves, eyes, lungs, etc. It is extremely improb- 

 able that they came into being — or even started to 

 come into being — by mere chance alone. The 

 odds are countless millions to one against the atoms, 

 molecules, and cells — myriads in number — of any 

 one of these organs of adaptation having by mere 

 chance grouped themselves in such a way as to form 

 an effective eye, or lung, or leaf. It is, literally 

 speaking, infinitely improbable that the organs of 

 adaptation we see in a forest, in plant and animal, 

 should have come into existence through chance 

 alone. 



The organs of adaptation are distinctly and defi- 

 nitely purposive structures — not purposed, perhaps, 

 but certainly purposeful. In its struggle with its 

 surroundings and with competitors the individual 

 has been compelled to bring into being organs to 

 fulfil a purpose. It is not the case that the organ 

 was first created and then a use found for it, or 

 use made of it. What actually happens is that first 

 there is a vague but insistent reaching out towards 

 an end, towards the fulfilment of some inner want 

 or need — the need for food or to propagate, or 

 whatever it may be — and that to achieve that end, 

 or fulfil that need, the individual is driven to create 

 a special organisation— as an Air Ministry was 

 created during the War to fulfil the new need for 



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