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Show 358 DARWINIAN A. than final causes. Adaptation to use, although the very essence of Darwinism, is not a fixed. and inflexible adaptation, realized once for all at the outset ; it includes a long progression and succession of modifications, adjusting themselves .to changing circumstances, under which they may be more and more diversified, specialized, and in a just sense perfected. Now, the question is, Does this involve the destruction or only the reconstruction of our consecrated ideas of teleology~ Is it compatible with our seemingly inborn conception of Nature as an ordered system ~ Furthermore, and above all, can the Darwinian theory itself dispense with the idea of purpose, in the ordinary sense of the word, as tantamount to design~ From two opposing sides we hear the first two questions answered in the negative. And an affirmative response to the third is directly implied in tho following citation : · "The word pv.rpose bas been. used in a sense to which it is, perhaps, worth while to call attention. .Adaptation of means to an end may be provided in two ways that we at present know of: by processes of natural selection, and by the agency of an intelligence in which an image or idea of the end preceded the use of the means. In both cases the existence of the adaptation is accounted for by the necessity or utility of the end. It seems to me convenient to use the word purpose as meaning generally the end to which certain means are adapted, both in these two cases and in any other that may hereafter become known, provided only that the adaptation is accounted for. by the necessity or utility of the end. .And there seems no OOJ '3Ction to the use of the phrase ' final cause' in this wider sense, if it is to be kept at all. The word ' design' might then be kept for the special case of adaptation by an intelligence. And we EVOLUTIONARY TELEOLOGY. 359 may then say that, since the process of natural selection has been understood, pu1'Pose has ceased to suggest design to in~ tructed people, except in cases where the agency of man is I~dependently probable."-P. 0. W., in the Contempo1·m·y ReVMW for September, 1875, p. 657. Th~ distinction made by this anonymous writer is convement and useful, and his statement clear. We p~·opose to adopt this use of the terms purpose and des~ gn, and to examine the allegation. The latter comes to this: "Processes of natural selection" exclude" the agency of an intelligence in which the image or idea of the end precedes. the use of the means ; " and since the former have been understood" purpose bas ceased to suggest design to instructed people, except in cases where the agency of man is independently probable." The maxim "L' homme propose, Dieu dispose," under this r~ading ~eans that the former bas the monopoly of des1gn, wh1le the latter accomplishes without designing. Man's works alone suggest design. But it is clear to us that this monopoly is shared with certain beings of inferior grade. Granting that quite possibly the capture of flies for food by Dionma and the sundews may be attributed to purpose apart from design (if it be practicable in the last resort to maintain this now convenient distinction), still their capture by a spider's-web, and by a swallow on the wing, can hardly "cease to suggest design to instructed people." And surely, in coming at his master's call, the dog fulfills his own design as well as that of his master; and so of other actions and constructions of brute animals. Without doubt so acute a writer has a clear and |
