o the former the same
reasoning as to the latter, and likewise some more besides.

Inasmuch as, of the innumerable combinations of which the elements or
elementary forces are susceptible, each and every one, in the absence
of any preference for one over another on the part of the volition on
which the occurrence of all depends, would have equal chances of
occurring, the chances against the occurrence at any particular time of
any particular combination would be as the number, or rather as the
innumerosity, of all the rest to one. Such, in the absence of any
intentional action on Nature's part, would be the odds against any one
single occurrence of any one elemental combination. Against the
perpetual repetition of the same combination the odds would be the same
innumerosity innumerable times multiplied. Nevertheless there actually
is everlastingly recurring, not simply one single specimen, but an
innumerable multitude of the same elemental combinations. Whatever were
the combinations necessary for producing all the existing organisms,
vegetable and animal, with which our earth swarms, the constant
recurrence of those same or nearly the same combinations is
indispensable both for the maintenance of the organisms during life and
for the production of successors to them; and such constant recurrence
is plainly going on. The chances then against its being unintended must
be the aforesaid multiple of innumerosity. But this is not all. The
multiple in question represents the chances against perpetual repetition
of any set whatever of elemental combinations, but about the actually
recurrent set there is this peculiarity, that it produces and maintains
innumerable organisms or machines, which--inasmuch as all of them are
marvellously fit, by reason of their respective specialities of
structure, for performing different obviously useful purposes--have all
the appearance of having been expressly constructed for the performance
of those purposes. If these appearances of adaptation were fallacious,
if the apparent utility were undesigned, the chances against the
perpetual recurrence of so singularly useful, rather than of some
totally useless, set of combinations would be a multiple of innumerosity
similar to that which has clearly been shown to represent the
preponderance of probability against the constant repetition of any set
of combinations whatever, whether useful or useless. If, then, it were
permissible to use so extravagant