EVOLUTIONARY TELEOLOGY. 377 



head of a moth or butterfly will be pressed against it 

 when it sucks nectar from the flower, and so the pol- 

 len will be bodily conveyed from blossom to blossom, 

 with small chance of waste or loss. The floral world 

 is full of such contrivances ; and while they exist the 

 doctrine of purpose or final cause is not likely to die 

 out. Now, in the contrasted case, that of pine-trees, 

 the vast superabundance of pollen would be sheer 

 waste if the intention was to fertilize the seeds of the 

 same tree, or if there were any provision for insect- 

 carriage ; but with wide-breeding as the end, and the 

 wind which " bloweth where it listeth " as the means, 

 no one is entitled to declare that pine-pollen is in 

 wasteful excess. The cheapness of wind-carriage may 

 be set against the over-production of pollen. 



Similar considerations may apply to the mould- 

 fungi and other very low organisms, with spores dis- 

 persed through the air in countless myriads, but of 

 which only an infinitesimal portion find opportunity 

 for development. The myriads perish. The excep- 

 tional one, falling into a fit medium, is imagined by 

 the Westminster Reviewer to argue design from the 

 beneficial provision it finds itself enjoying, in happy 

 ignorance of the perishing or latent multitude. But, 

 in view of the large and important part they play (as 

 the producers of all fermentation and as the omni- 

 present scavenger-police of Nature), no good ground 

 appears for arguing either wasteful excess or absence 

 of design from the vast disparity between their po- 

 tential and their actual numbers. The reserve and 

 the active members of the force should both be count- 

 ed in, ready as they always and everywhere are for 



