THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN.
Kant called the argument from design "the oldest, the clearest, and the
most adapted to the ordinary human reason," of all the arguments
advanced on behalf of the belief in God. Kant's dictum, it will be
observed, omits all opinion as to its quality, and his own criticism of
it left it a sorry wreck. John Stuart Mill treated it far more
respectfully, and commenced his examination of it with the flattering
introduction, "We now at last reach an argument of a really scientific
character," and, although he did not find the argument convincing, gave
it a most respectful dismissal. The purpose of the present chapter is to
show that the argument from design in nature is in the last degree
unscientific, that the analogy it seeks to establish is a false one,
that it is completely and hopelessly irrelevant to the point at issue,
and that one might grant nearly all it asks for, and even then show that
it does not prove what it sets out to prove. That such an argument
should have, and for so long, exerted so much influence over the human
mind, gives one anything but a flattering impression of the power of
reason in human affairs.
True it is that of late years the argument from design has felt the
influence of the growth of the idea of evolution, and the champions of
theism have used it with much greater caution, and under an obvious
sense that it no longer wielded its old authority. The fact that this
is so forms a commentary on the statement so often made that man's
craving for an ultimate cause leads to the belief in God. The truth
being that man--the average man--only seeks for an explanation of
immediate happenings. Once the immediate thing before him is explained
his curiosity is allayed. The average man lives mentally from hand to
mouth, and troubles as little about ultimate explanations as he does
about the exhaustion of the coal supply.
It is a point of some significance that the perception of design in
nature, as with the belief in deity, is, if one may use the expression,
pre-scientific in point of origin. What I mean by that is that it
originates at a time when no other explanation of the origin of natural
adaptations existed. It did not establish itself as one of several rival
explanations and in virtue of its own strength. It was established
simply because no other explanation was at the time conceivable. And so
soon as another explanation, such as that of natural selection, was
placed before the world, the origin of adaptations as a product of an
extra-natural designing intelligence became to most educated minds
simply impossible. The perception of design in nature was, as a matter
of fact, no more than a special illustration of the animistic frame of
mind which reads vitality into all natural happenings. It is impossible
to find in the statement that particular adaptations in nature are
designed anything more scientific than one can find in the belief that
rain is the product of a heavenly rain-cow, or that flashes of lightning
are spears thrown by competing heavenly warriors. It is the language
only that differs in the two cases. The frame of mind indicated in the
two cases are identical.
The attractiveness of the argument from design lies in its nearness to
hand and in its appeal to facts, combined with the impossibility of
verification. That nature is full of strange and curious examples of
adaptation is clear to all, although the significance of these
adaptations are by no means so clear. Moreover, a very casual study of
these cases show that they are better calculated to dazzle than to
convince. The presentation of a number of more or less elaborate facts
of adaptation, followed with the remark that we are unable to see how
such cases could have been brought about in the absence of a designing
intelligence, is, at best, an appeal to human weakness and ignorance.
The reverse of such a position is that if we had complete knowledge of
the causes at work, the assumption of design might be found to be quite
unnecessary. "We cannot see" is only the equivalent of we do not know,
and that is a shockingly bad basis on which to build an argument.
When, therefore, an eminent electrician like Professor Fleming says, "We
have overwhelming proof that in the manufacture of the infinite number
of substances made in Nature's laboratory there must be at all stages
some directivity," this can only mean that Professor Fleming cannot see
the way in which these substances are made. It does not mean that he
sees _how_ they are made. And in saying this he is in no better position
than was Kepler, who after describing the true laws of planetary motion,
when he came to the question of _why_ the planets should describe these
motions fell back on the theory of "Angelic intelligences" as the
cause. The true explanation came with the physics of Galileo and Newton,
and with that, farewell to the angelic "directivity." The only reason
for Kepler's angels was his ignorance of the causes of planetary motion.
The only reason why Professor Fleming says that the atoms "have to be
guided into certain positions to build up the complex molecules" is that
he is unable to isolate this assumed directive force and to show it in
operation; he is like a modern Kepler faced with something the cause of
which he doesn't know, and lugging in "God" to save further trouble. It
is an assumption of knowledge where no knowledge exists. "God" is always
what Spinoza called it, the asylum of ignorance. When causes are unknown
"God" is brought forward. When causes are known "God" retires into the
background. "God" is not an explanation, it is a narcotic.
The argument from design rests upon the existence in nature of
adaptations either general or special. And quite obviously the value of
evidence derived from adaptations will be determined by the existence of
non-adaptations. If, that is, it can be shown that a certain assemblage
of forces produce adaptation, while in another instance they fail to
produce it, it would then be logical to argue that the difference was
due to the directive power being withdrawn in the latter case. But that
as we know is never the case. What we see is always the same conditions
producing the same effects. We are never able to say, "Here are natural
forces working _minus_ a directing intelligence, and here is an
assemblage of the same forces working _plus_ the addition of a
directing intelligence." If we could do that we should be able to
attribute the difference to the new factor. But this we are never able
to do. And it is an elementary principle of scientific method that
before we can assert the existence of a distinct force or factor, the
possibility of isolation must be shown. Adaptation can, then, only be
demonstrated by non-adaptation. And _non-adaptation in nature simply
does not exist, except in relation to an ideal end created by
ourselves_.
Surprising as this may appear to some, examination shows it to be no
more than a truism, and that granted, the whole strength of the argument
from adaptation, whether in the inorganic or the organic world,
disappears.
To see the matter the more clearly, let us drop for a time the word
"adaptation" and substitute the word "process." For that after all is
what nature presents us with. We see processes and we see results. It is
because we create an _end_ for these processes that we class them as
well or ill adapted to achieve it. We make a gun, and say it is ill or
well made as it shoots well or ill. But whether it carries straight or
not the relation of the shooting to the construction of the gun remains
the same. Judging the gun merely from its construction, the product
answers completely to the combination of its parts. Constructed in one
way the gun cannot but shoot straight. Constructed in another way the
gun cannot but shoot crookedly. And the only reason we have for calling
one good and the other bad is that _we_ desire a particular result. But
the goodness or badness has nothing to do with the thing itself. Its
adaptation to the end produced is as perfect in the one case as in the
other. It could produce no other result than the one that actually
emerges without an alteration in the means employed. A thing is what it
is because it is the combination of all the forces that produce it. And
to ask us to marvel at the result of a process, when the one is the
product of the other is like asking us to express our surprise that
twice two equal four. Twice two equal four because four is the sum of
the factors, and no one dreams of praising God because they don't
sometimes make four and a half. The argument from adaptations in nature
is, when examined, just about as impressive as the reasoning of the
curate who saw the hand of Providence in the fact that death came at the
end of life instead of in the middle of it.
Adaptation is not, then, a singular fact in nature, but a universal one.
It is everywhere, in the case of death as in that of life. It is the
same in the case of a child born a marvel of health and beauty as in
that of one born deformed and diseased. There is nothing else but
adaptations of means to ends in nature, however displeasing some of them
may be to us. The "harmony" which the theist perceives in nature is not
the expression of "plan," it is the inevitable outcome of the properties
of existence. Given matter and force, and it requires no "directive
intelligence" to produce the existing order, it would indeed require a
God to prevent its occurrence.
It is the same if we take the case of animal life alone. To say that
animal life is adapted to its environment, and to say that animal life
exists, is to say the same thing in two ways. Whether animal forms are
fashioned by "divine intelligence" or not, the fact of adaptation
remains; for adaptation is the essential condition of existence. And as
adaptation is the condition of existence, it follows that an animal's
feelings, structure, and functions will be developed in accordance with
the nature of the environment. If the conditions of existence were
different from what they are animal life would show corresponding
modifications. But all the same we should observe the same
correspondence between animal life and its surroundings. Here, again, we
have a fact transformed, without the slightest warranty, into a purpose.
Now, if the theist could prove that out of a number of equally possible
lines of development living beings show one fixed form, and that against
the compulsion of environmental forces, he would do something to prove
the probability of some sort of guidance. But that we know cannot be
done. The forms of life are infinite in number. They vary within all
possible limits; and always in terms of environmental conditions. In
brief, what is said to occur with God, can be shown to be inevitable
without him. "God" in nature is a wholly gratuitous hypothesis.
Later it will be seen that the whole basis of the argument from design
is fallacious; that it proceeds along altogether wrong lines, and that
the final objection to it is that it is completely irrelevant to the
point at issue. For the moment, however, we proceed with a criticism of
the argument as usually stated.
It must be borne in mind that what the theist desires to reach is a
_Creator_, but it is obvious that this plea can never give us more than
a mere designer working on materials that already exist. Of necessity
design implies two things, difficulties to be overcome, and skill or
wisdom in overcoming them. Design is an understandable thing in
connection with man, because man is always occupied in overcoming the
resistance of forces that exist quite independently of him, and which
operate without reference to his needs or desires. But it would be
absurd to assume design on the part of one for whom difficulties had no
existence, or on the part of one who himself created the forces that had
to be overcome, and endowed them with all the properties which made the
work of design necessary. Granting the relevance of the data upon which
the belief in design rests, one could only assume, with Mill, that "the
author of the Cosmos worked under limitations; that he was obliged to
adapt himself to conditions independent of his will, and to attain his
ends by such arrangements as these conditions admitted of."
In the next place, the argument for design is an argument from analogy,
and an analogy can by its very nature never give a complete
demonstration. It can never offer more than a probability, more or less
convincing as the analogy is more of less complete. But in the case
under consideration the analogy is considerably less rather than more.
Paley's classical illustration--taken almost verbatim from Malebranche,
but as old otherwise as the days of Greek philosophy, where a statute
took its place--was that of a watch. And the conclusion was drawn that
as the parts of a watch bear obvious marks of having been made with a
view to a particular end, so the animal structure and the universe as a
whole bear similar marks of having been designed. It is true that of
late years the Paleyan form of the argument has been disavowed by most
scholarly advocates of theism, but as they immediately proceed to make
use of arguments that are substantially identical with it, the
repudiation does not seem of great consequence. It reminds one of a
government that is compelled by the force of public opinion to openly
repudiate one of its officials, and having removed him from the office
in which the misdemeanour was committed, immediately appoints him to one
of an increased dignity and with a larger salary.
Thus, we have Professor Fiske saying that "Paley's simile of a watch is
no longer applicable to such a world as this" ("Idea of God"; p. 131),
and Prof. Sorley telling us that "the age of Paley and of the
Bridgewater Treatises is past" (Moral Values and the Idea of God; p.
327), and Mr. Balfour repudiating Paley as having been ruled out of
court by Darwinism ("Humanism and Theism," chapter II.). But as Fiske
puts the flower in the place of the watch, Sorley, the moral nature of
man, and Balfour, the conditions of animal life, it is not quite clear
why if the Paleyan argument is invalid, the new form is any more
intellectually respectable. The essence of the Paleyan argument was the
assertion of a mind behind phenomena, the workings of which could be
seen in the forms of animal life. And whether we find that proof in the
growth of a flower, or in the moral sense of man, or in the creation of
natural conditions that impel the development of life along a certain
road, the distinction is not vital. We are still finding proofs of God
in the structure of the world (where otherwise, indeed, are we to find
it?) and we are still depending on the supposed likeness between the
works of human intelligence and natural products.
And that analogy is wholly false. The argument from design aims at
proving that _all_ things are made by a creative intelligence. It is not
merely animals that are designed; they are selected as no more than
striking individual examples of a general truth. Everything, if theism
be true, must be ultimately due to manufacture. But the whole
significance of the Paleyan argument from design is that behind the
manufactured article which we recognise as such, there are other
articles or other things that are not manufactured. The traveller, says
Paley, who comes across a watch recognises in the relation of its parts
evidences of workmanship. But he does not see in the breaking of a wave
on the shore, or in the piling up of sand in the desert, or in a pebble
on the beach, the same tokens of workmanship. In the very act of
attempting to prove that _some_ things _are_ made, the theist is
compelled to assume that _all_ things are not made. He can only gain a
victory at the price of confessing a defeat.
But is there any real analogy between the works of man and the universe
at large? Let us take a familiar example. It is, we are told in a very
familiar illustration, as absurd to imagine that the world as it exists
is the work of unguided natural forces, as it would be to believe that
the rows of letters in a compositor's "stick" had of their own
contained force arranged themselves in intelligible sentences. The
absurdity of the last supposition is admitted, but why is that so?
Obviously because we have the previous knowledge that the type itself is
a manufactured thing, and that its arrangement in orderly sentences is
the work of intelligent men. Thus, what occurs when we come across a
particular example of type setting is that we compare our present
experience with other experiences and recognise it as belonging to a
particular class. So with the watch. The only reason we have for
believing that a watch is made is that of our previous knowledge that
such things are made. The present judgment is based upon past
experience. But the case of animal forms, and still more the universe at
large, offers no such analogy. We know nothing of world makers nor of
animal makers. We have no previous experience to go upon, nor have we
any things of a similar kind, known to be made, with which we can
compare them. Instead of the points of resemblance between the two
things being so numerous as to compel belief, they agree in one
particular only, that of existence. At most all we are left with is the
palpably absurd position that because man selects and adjusts means to a
given end, therefore any combination of forces in nature which produce a
certain result must also be the expression of conscious intention.
Some apparent force even to this flimsy conclusion might be given if
nature could be said to be working towards a given end. But we do not
find this. What we see is a multitude of forces at work, the action of
each of which often results in the negation of the other. Put on one
side the larger, but not the least pregnant fact that animal life is
only maintained in the face of numerous agencies, inorganic and organic,
that are apparently bent upon its destruction; put on one side also the
fact that multitudes of parasites--as much the result of design as any
other form of life--are constantly preying upon and destroying forms of
life higher than themselves, and there still remain myriads of facts
altogether inconsistent and completely irreconcilable with the
hypothesis of a creative intelligence shaping the course of affairs to a
given end. To take only one illustration of this. What is to be said of
the myriads of animals that are born into the world only to perish
before reaching an age at which they can play their part in the
perpetuation of the species? Are we to believe that the same deity who
fashioned these forms of life created at the same time a number of
forces that were certain to destroy them? Clearly we are bound to
assume, either that this hypothetical Being pursues a number of mutually
destructive plans, or that there are a number of designers at work and
at war with each other, or that none at all exist.
If we are to judge nature from the standpoint of human intelligence,
then we must logically decide that it is full of waste, full of
bungling, full of plans that come to nothing, of ends that are never
realised, of pain and misery that might have been avoided by the
exercise of almost ordinary intelligence. There are few animals
concerning which a competent anatomist or physiologist could not suggest
some improvement in their construction by which their functions might be
more efficiently performed. Nor does it seem quite impossible to have
so adjusted natural forces that the development of life might have been
accomplished without the present enormous waste of material. It is
almost stupid to ask, as did the late Dr. Martineau, what right have we
to judge the world from "a purely humanistic point of view." The whole
argument from design is based upon a humanistic point of view. The
Atheist is only calling the attention of the theist to the consequences
of his own argument.
I leave for a later chapter, the moral aspect of the design argument. I
am at present concerned with its purely logical presentation. And the
crowning charge here is not that it is inconclusive, not that it falls
short, as Mill thought, of a complete analogy, the decisive rejection of
it is based upon the fact that it is absolutely irrelevant. The argument
has no bearing on the issue; the evidence has no relation to the case.
What is the essence of the argument from design? It is based upon
certain adaptations that are observed to exist. But adaptation is, as we
have shown, a universal quality of existence. It exists in every case,
and no more in one case than in another. And when the theist says that
because certain things work together therefore god arranged it, an apt
query is, How do you know? One may even say, Granting there is a God,
how do you know that what is was actually designed by him? It is no use
replying that the way things work together prove design, for things
always work together. They cannot do otherwise. Any group of forces work
together to produce a given result. That is part of the universal fact
of adaptation which the theist holds up as though it were a divine
miracle instead of, as Mallock says, a physical platitude.
Let us take an illustration from everyday life. A man tries his hand at
building a bicycle. When it is finished the wheels are not true, the
frame is unsteady, the whole thing is ready to fall to pieces and is
absolutely unrideable. Is any one warranted in declaring that because
the parts have all been brought together by me therefore the resulting
machine was an act of design? Clearly not. What I designed was a machine
perfect after its kind. What appeared was the miserable structure that
is before us. On the other hand that machine with all its imperfections
might have been designed by me. I might, for some purpose deliberately
have intended to make a machine that would not carry a rider. And when
would anyone be logically justified in saying which of the two kinds of
machines express my design? Clearly, only when he had a knowledge of my
intention. Apart from a knowledge of an intention preceding an act the
inference of design is unwarrantable.
Now, assuming the existence of a God, and who stands in the same
relation to the world that I do to the machine, how can anyone know that
the world as it is expresses design any more than did my home-made
bicycle? In this case, as in the former, what is needed to justify the
assumption of design is a knowledge of intention. One must know what the
assumed maker intended and then see how far the actual result realises
it.
Design, in short, although it may be expressed in a physical form is not
a physical thing, but a psychic fact. You cannot by examining physical
processes and results reach design. You cannot start with a material
fact and reach intention. You must begin with intention and compare it
with the physical result. Things may be as they are whether design is
involved or not. It is only by a knowledge of intention, and a
comparison of that with the fact before us that we can be certain of
design. Proof of design is not found in the capacity of certain clusters
of circumstances or forces to realise a particular result, but in a
knowledge that they correspond with an intention which we know to have
existed before the result occurs.
To warrant a logical belief in design in nature three things are
essential. First, one must assume that a God exists. Second, one must
take it for granted that one has a knowledge of the intention in the
mind of the deity before the alleged designed thing is brought into
existence. Finally, one must be able to compare the result with the
intention and demonstrate their agreement. But the impossibility of
knowing the first two things is apparent. And without the first two the
third is of no value whatever. For we have no means of reaching the
first except through the third. And until we get to the first we cannot
make use of the third. We are thus in a hopeless impasse. No examination
of nature can lead back to God because we lack the necessary starting
point. All the volumes that have been written, and all the sermons that
have been preached depicting the wisdom of organic structures are so
much waste of paper and breath. They prove nothing, and can prove
nothing. They assume at the beginning all they require at the end. Their
God is not something reached by way of inference, it is something
assumed at the very outset.
What the theist does at every step of his reasoning is to read his own
feelings and desires into nature. The design he talks so glibly about is
in him, not outside of him. As well might a maggot in a cheese argue
that the world was designed for him because the agreement between his
structure and it are so harmonious. In relation to their surroundings
man and the maggot are in the same position. And in the economy of
nature man is of no more consequence than the maggot. There is a more
complex synthesis of forces here than there, a more subtle exhibition of
nature's infinite capacity for evolving fresh forms of life, and that is
all. It is man himself who paints a distorted picture of himself on the
surface of things, who reads his own passions and desires into nature,
and then admires a marvel created by himself. To he who correctly
visualises the process of the evolution of deity, the existence of God
is hardly to-day a question for discussion. There is a discussion only
of the history of the belief, and in that is found its strongest
condemnation.