Is There Any Chance Involved in the Evolutionary Process?
A Look at Aristotle's Physics II

by Moya K. Mason

Aristotle

Aristotle briefly considered the possibility that the universe as we know it evolved by chance. He theorized there are four essential causes involved in any natural change,⁽¹⁾ and also any number of accidental causes: luck and chance being two of them.⁽²⁾ Chance is an accidental efficient cause for any natural agent; while luck involves the consciousness of choice, as in human choice.⁽³⁾ It seems as if Aristotle was making a definite distinction between them. For example, consider you have been trying to locate a person who is the only one who can help you with a certain problem. You go to a party and meet that person there, this would be considered good luck. However, at the same party you could see someone you do not like and do not wish to meet. In that case, you would feel you had bad luck. Luck is a two-fold occurrence: sometimes considered good, sometimes considered bad, depending on the circumstances.⁽⁴⁾ But you could have just as easily said that you met your friend by chance and to Aristotle, luck and chance are closely linked; with all incidents of luck "also an effect by chance, but not every effect by chance is an effect by luck."⁽⁵⁾

Chance, on the other hand, seems to involve inanimate objects like rocks and stones, and also animals, like horses and cats, all of which have no volition.⁽⁶⁾ For example, when the comets hit Jupiter, they had no choice in the matter; when a boulder falls over a cliff and kills two people who are walking by, it is obvious the boulder did not make a conscious choice to cause injury to anyone.⁽⁷⁾ Chance was not an independent or fifth cause to Aristotle, rather, a species of existing cause such as efficient ones. Chance is an accident occurring only occasionally⁽⁸⁾ and can be considered an indefinite possibility in natural occurrences. For instance, if you go to a shopping centre to buy clothes and meet a friend who is also there to shop, your meeting is one of chance. Although it happened by accident, it still involves two essential efficient causes crossing paths with one another, with a coincidental meeting as a by-product. Any accidental efficient cause, such as chance never occurs without an essential efficient cause, which is prior to it,⁽⁹⁾ such as the desire to buy clothes.

Aristotle does not deny that the universe may have evolved by chance, but says "however true it may be that chance is the cause of the heavens, that intellect or nature is of necessity a prior cause of this whole universe,"⁽¹⁰⁾ because "no accidental cause is prior to an essential cause."⁽¹¹⁾ Aristotle would not believe in 'Creation' as an explanation for the existence of the universe because that would involve the belief it is possible to get something from nothing. Although Aristotle may have disagreed with many things Parmenides said, he did not refute the fact that something cannot come from nothing. But if God, for example, did not create the universe, then who or what did?

Aristotle believed the universe was always here and did not come into existence: that our natural surroundings and the universe in general. Nature always existed and has not come into being nor will it go out of being. Nature, or the whole system of existence exists independently of us and is a given. Human beings have a hard time assimilating that things exist apart from themselves and insist upon a superhuman or a deity to be given the credit for everything that ever was. To me, the universe must be without a beginning in time, owing no credit, and acting with spontaneity as can be seen when volcanoes erupt or floods wipe out whole towns.

So to Aristotle, the universe is eternal, even though he was convinced an "intellect or nature"⁽¹²⁾ may have caused its evolution. Perhaps it did evolve by chance, since chance is always a possibility in any natural change,⁽¹³⁾ but he does consider chance evolution to be an unsatisfactory explanation of how the universe unfolded.⁽¹⁴⁾ There still must be something that acted as a prior cause, something of intelligence or maybe a natural force. Aristotle does not choose one or the other.⁽¹⁵⁾ To him, evolution came to be "for the sake of something else."⁽¹⁶⁾ It seems as if he was saying the universe is the final cause of "thought or of nature,"⁽¹⁷⁾ with nature or intellect being the essential efficient cause. He does say "there is, then, final cause in things which come to be or exist by nature."⁽¹⁸⁾

It would be difficult not to accept Aristotle's Doctrine of the Four Essential Causes and his premise that there also exists accidental efficient causes, such as luck and chance. It all seems so clear and distinct, but what about his contention that chance evolution is an unsatisfactory explanation of how the universe evolved? It stands to reason that if one agrees with Aristotle on the other points, then one should also endorse him on the question of whether it is a satisfactory explanation. But he does nothing to dispel the dissatisfaction besides saying there must be a prior cause by way of an intellect or by nature. It seems strange that he would not at least choose one or the other, since they are such radically different spheres of explanation. I can understand why he would not make a scientific hypothesis on the nature of chance because it is such a random thing, but one can only wonder what he really thought about the whole reason for the universe's development. With the deductive and methodological mind he had, I expected him to stress that nature is the force that was the prior essential efficient cause. But is chance evolution such an unsatisfactory explanation?

It is not such an unsatisfactory answer when one thinks of all the basic elements such as atoms and subatomic particles and all the countless combinations of molecules, motions, and temperatures that could have gone into the emergence of life as we know it. There could even be some yet undiscovered forms of energy that could have played a part. Natural forces can act with a lot of spontaneity depending on many different occurrences, with many different results. Emilio F. Moran, in his famous book entitled Human Adaptability, wrote:

Evolution includes what may be termed mechanisms of continuity and mechanisms of variation. Mechanisms of continuity provide stability in nature, while mechanisms of variation are the products of chance and provide the variability in species that allows new solutions to be available when environmental changes occur.⁽¹⁹⁾

However, he also says that "it is easy to misunderstand that Darwin's view of evolution is not a product of chance. Quite the contrary. It is directional and in due time leads to adaptive solutions in nature."⁽²⁰⁾

So it seems a very complicated question. Evolution may be considered a process of chance, but there also seems to be a fundamental direction which I would say does not come from any intellect, but from nature itself. That nature must be the life force that gave the universe its characteristics and that chance is an accidental cause of the changes that occurred, playing a part in the process. And that nature is constant which can be seen in the eternal and consistent way celestial bodies move.

If Aristotle did write anything further on the subject, it has sadly not come down through the ages to us. Maybe he was not interested in something he could not actually make definitive statements about and that is understandable. He did briefly consider the possibility the universe as we know it evolved by chance,⁽²¹⁾ however, only briefly since agreement would have destroyed his Doctrine of Four Essential Causes -- there had to be a prior essential cause for the change, as there was for "many other things and of this whole universe."⁽²²⁾ He does not deny that the universe evolved by chance because he could never prove it one way or the other, and it would be a waste of time, but he thought it was ultimately, a poor explanation. For him, there was something else in the background, some sort of design which gave direction and caused the universe to unfold; it may have been mind or nature.

On the surface, it seems that chance evolution is a satisfactory explanation, but is it really? I must agree with Aristotle and say it really is not good enough. Yes, chance plays an important function in the natural process of development, but it is not the whole explanation. There must be an underlying cause and I believe it is Mother Nature, a force that is outside the power of our volition and independent of any consciousness. Mother Nature exists independently of us and will still be here when we are gone. Mother Nature is a powerful force we can witness everyday in our own lives and can see it is sometimes terribly savage. Doesn't it make sense that it is the underlying essential cause of change since nature is something that can move us, leave us in a state of awe, and is something we yearn to be close to, like a baby to its mother? Who has not wanted to leave the concrete city and experience nature, taking in all its marvels, and rejoicing in the way it makes us feel? Mother Nature is the essential efficient cause of the changes that have occurred, while the outcome, the universe as we know it, is its final cause.

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