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probability, on the hypothesis of chance concatenation, that any
arrangement exists as it does.
Now these admissions---which form the basis of the objection---would
seem to vitiate the contention of the objection entirely.
If any arrangement of the elements is almost infinitely
improbable on the basis of chance, then are we to affirm that
therefore chance explains the present universe or any other?
Would you write a check on your bank if I could show you that
it was almost infinitely improbable that the bank had any
funds? The opposite conclusion is the rational one: namely,
that chance does not explain any arrangement whatever, but that
recourse must be had to mind to explain the existence of a universe,
whatever its order. It scarcely seems reasonable that I
should accept an explanation which by hypothesis is almost infinitely
improbable---and accept it for the very reason that it is
thus improbable. Certainly, this is not the ordinary mode of
procedure in any other investigation. Of course, the word almost
makes the hypothesis of chance still barely possible: but
the cosmological argument, as we have seen, plus the impossibility
of explaining the origin of mind from a material base, destroys
even that bare possibility.
Now add in the other admission of the objection: namely,
that the universe is replete with instances where the complex of
causes conspires to produce effects which are suited to ends
that could not have been previsioned by the elements themselves
(except on the hypothesis of an untenable panpsychism).
Not only is this a universe which, in terms of chance, is almost
infinitely improbable: it is [[306]] one in which the complex of
causes does result in the adaptation of means to what turn out to
be ends; the structure of the eye, for example, conspiring to
make vision possible. The hypothesis of chance now appears to
be reducing to the vanishing point: the whole structure of the
universe is as if it had been produced by an intelligent will;
chance, the only alternative, is almost infinitely improbable and