278 
38 It will be objected that this philosophy nowhere affirms 
that order and adaptation have been evolved by chance action, 
but by forces working in conformity with immutable law. I 
reply that chance is only another name for the blind action of 
unintelligent laws and forces, and that the only additional 
factor introduced by the term chance is, that two or mor of 
these forces or laws happen to intersect one another at a 
time and place suitable for producing a particular result and 
without which concurrence the result could not have existed^ 
When these do so at such a time and place that a 
narticular effect is the result of their intersection, this is 
what we call a lucky chance. What I mean will be more easty 
understood by an illustration. Let us suppose a rock under 
going the process of disintegration. The action of water and 
of frost has opened in it several fissures. In ^cordance wi* 
another set of natural laws, the wind, or some other force, 
carries into them at this particular moment a “umber of seeds. 
These take root; fresh disintegration takes place. The ope 
tion is repeated; and thus the process is accelerated far more 
than it could have been by the action of a single force, ihis 
philosophy is compelled to invoke the aid of such lucky con- 
currences^ forces in numbers numberless. Without them it 
would be powerless to impart to its speculations even 
appearance of probability. In addition to this it demand^ • the 
right of drawing to any extent on the eternity of the past tor 
an indefinite amount of time for the purpose of carrying on its 
operations. What is not possible in one hundred years may 
happen in one million. In this manner, with the bank of 
of eternity at command, all things are possible. 
39 I submit that this mode of reasoning is not to solve the 
question, but to evade it. It gives no real account of the origin 
of those adaptations with which the universe abounds. On the 
contrary, there is something in the constitution of our minds 
which compels us when we contemplate an adaptation of com- 
plicated parts, exactly fitted , to produce a suitable result, and 
observe that the result is brought about by the adaptation, to 
infer that it has been effected by the action of intelligence. 
Reason arrives at the conclusion that order and adaptation 
cannot have resulted from the action of unintelligent forces, 
hut of intelligent mind. This will be the invariable inference, 
except where the exigencies of a particular theory comp 
those who hold it to renounce the convictions of common sense. 
Let it be observed that I am speaking, not of some ™Perfe°t 
condition of the human savage, but of the fully developed 
intellect of cultivated men. 
