280 THE RIDDLE OF THE UNIVERSE. 



courageous workers predominate. Yet the talk of a 

 " moral order " goes on. 



Since impartial study of the evolution of the world 

 teaches us that there is no definite aim and no special 

 purpose to be traced in it, there seems to be no 

 alternative but to leave everything to " blind chance." 

 This reproach has been made to the transformism of 

 Lamarck and Darwin, as it had been to the previous 

 systems of Kant and Laplace ; there are a number of 

 dualist philosophers who lay great stress on it. It 

 is, therefore, worth while to make a brief remark 

 upon it. 



One group of philosophers affirms, in accordance 

 with its teleological conception, that the whole 

 cosmos is an orderly system, in which every pheno- 

 menon has its aim and purpose ; there is no such 

 thing as chance. The other group, holding a 

 mechanical theory, expresses itself thus : The deve- 

 lopment of the universe is a monistic mechanical 

 process, in which we discover no aim or purpose 

 whatever ; what we call design in the organic world 

 is a special result of biological agencies; neither in 

 the evolution of the heavenly bodies nor in that of 

 the crust of our earth do we find any trace of a 

 controlling purpose — all is the result of chance. 

 Each party is right — according to its definition of 

 chance. The general law of causality, taken in 

 conjunction with the law of substance, teaches us 

 that every phenomenon has a mechanical cause ; in 

 this sense there is no such thing as chance. Yet 

 it is not only lawful, but necessary, to retain the 

 term for the purpose of expressing the simultaneous 

 occurrence of two phenomena, which are not causally 

 related to each other, but of which each has its own 



