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 an