Natural Selection not Unteleological 233 



be true, then natural selection may be the method of realiz- 

 ing a cosmic design, if such exists, the law of variation 

 guaranteeing the presence of a fixed proportional number 

 of individuals which are ' fit ' with reference to a preestab- 

 lished end. All natural processes are subject to law. 

 Design must work out its results by means of natural laws. 

 Why may not the law of probable distribution be the 

 vehicle of such design. Combining this with the result 

 mentioned above, that even moral processes — thus includ- 

 ing events in which individual purpose plays a part — are 

 found to be subject to law when taken in large numbers, 

 we are led to the conclusion that the law of probabilities, 

 upon which natural selection rests, is an entirely adequate 

 vehicle of a process of teleology in evolution. 



A good illustration may be seen in the use made of vital 

 statistics in life insurance. We pay a premium rate based 

 on the calculation of the probability of life, and thus by 

 observing this law realize the teleological purpose of pro- 

 viding for our children; and we do it more effectively, 

 though indirectly, than if we carried our money in bags 

 around our necks, and gradually added our savings to it. 

 Furthermore, the insurance company is a great teleologi- 

 cal agency, both for us and for itself ; for it also secures 

 dividends for its stockholders on the basis of charges 

 adjusted to the * chances ' of life, drawn from the mortality 

 tables. Why is it not a reasonable view that cosmic 

 Purpose — if we may call it so — works by similar, but 

 more adequate, knowledge of the whole and so secures 

 its results — whether in conformity to or in contravention 

 of our individual striving? Could results so reached be 

 called blind or unteleological ? As this point has been put 

 in a recent popular work {Story of the Mind, Preface), 



