ne falling out of space acted upon by similar forces, which
determine where it shall strike the earth? In this case, we must
substitute for the energy of my arm the cosmic energy that gives the
primal impetus to all heavenly bodies. If the falling aerolite were to
hit a person or a house, we should say it was a matter of chance,
because it was not planned or designed. But when the shells of the
long-range guns hit their invisible target or the bombs from the
airplanes hit their marks, chance plays a part, because all the
factors that enter into the problem are not and cannot be on the
instant accurately measured. The collision of two heavenly bodies in
the depth of space, which does happen, is, from our point of view, a
matter of chance, although governed by inexorable law.

The forms of inanimate objects--rocks, hills, rivers, lakes--are
matters of chance, since they serve no purpose: any other form would
be as fit; but the forms of living things are always purposeful. Is it
possible to believe that the human body, with all its complicated
mechanism, its many wonderful organs of secretion and excretion and
assimilation, is any more matter of chance than a watch or a
phonograph is? Though what agent to substitute for the word "chance,"
I confess I do not know. The short cut to an omnipotent Creator
sitting apart from the thing created will not satisfy the naturalist.
And to make energy itself creative, as Professor Osborn does, is only
to substitute one god for another. I can no more think of the course
of organic evolution as being accidental in the Darwinian sense, than
I can think of the evolution of the printing-press or the aeroplane as
being accidental, although chance has played its part. Can we think of
the first little horse of which we have any record, the eohippus of
three or four millions of years ago, as evolving by accidental
variations into the horse of our time, without presupposing an equine
impulse to development? As well might we trust our ships to the winds
and waves with the expectation that they will reach their several
ports.

Are we to believe that we live in an entirely mechanical and
fortuitous world--a world which has no interior, which is only a maze
of acting, reacting, and interacting of blind physical forces?
According to the chance theory, the struggle of a living body to exist
does not differ from the vicissitudes of, say, water seeking an
equilibrium, or heat a uniform temperature.