278 The Origin of a 'Thing' and its Nature 



was asked, is the probability of the letters of the Iliad fall- 

 ing together so as to read out the Iliad f The opponents, 

 on the other hand, have said : Why is not the Iliad combi- 

 nation as natural as any other? — one combination has to 

 happen ; what is to prevent this ? If a child who cannot 

 read should throw the letters, the Iliad combination is no 

 more strange to him than any other. These men are reason- 

 ing in the retrospective categories. They are interpreting 

 facts. The fault of the latter position is that it fails to see 

 in reality the element of organization which the whole 

 series when looked at from the point of view of the pro- 

 duction of the Iliad requires. It is true that the Iliad is 

 one of an infinite number of possible combinations ; but it 

 is also true that Homer did not try the other combinations 

 before hitting upon the Iliad. 



What would really happen, we may say, if the child 

 should throw the Iliad combination, would be that nature 

 had produced a second time a combination once before 

 produced (in the mind of Homer, and through him in ours) 

 without fulfilling all the other combinations — an infinite 

 number — which have a right to be fulfilled before the 

 Iliad combination be reproduced. And it is the corre- 

 spondence of the two — apart from the meaning of the 

 Iliad at its original production — which would surprise us. 



But it is clear that the additional element of organiza- 

 tion needed to bring nature into accord with thought 

 and which the postulate of design makes in reaching 

 a Designer — this is not needed from the mere histor- 

 ical or retrospective examination of the facts. In other 

 words, if the opponents of design are right in holding to a 

 complete reduction of organization to retrospective catego- 

 ries, they ought to be able to produce intelligible results 



