Purposive explanations are acceptable only when there are conscious beings who can conceive purposes and carr them out. Since most explanations in the physical sciences do not involve the presence of conscious beings, there in these areas in terms of purpose. Why do balloons rise? Why does iron rust? Why do pipes burst? These questions are answered in terms of physical laws, and these laws involve no reference to purposes. Only when there are laws about human ve explanations of events in terms of such purpose and oses can we such laws are very rough-and-ready ones indeed, such as that people ordinarily do what they intend to do unless they are unable to do so Sometimes people (particularly children) are not satisfied with explanations unless they receive some answer in terms of purpose. Since this is the type of explanation most familiar to everyone in his own consciousness one tends to assume that all explanation must be of this form. "Why did he die?" "Well, the car hit him as he was crossing the street and No, I mean why did he die, not how he die." If a complete account of what happened and the laws involved does not satisfy the questioner, what he is probably seeking (perhaps without being clearly aware of it himself) is some explanation in terms of purpose: in this case, perhaps, a divine purpose or intent in bringing about the person's death. Whether such explanations in terms of divine purposes are ever true is a question we cannot pursue here but shall touch on in Chapter 7. Here we can only remark that if there are such divine purposes, and we can know this, then the events in question can be explained in terms of purpose; otherwise not. It remains true in either case that whenever there is a purpose, there must be someone to have that purpose.