358 DARWINIANA. 



than final causes. Adaptation to use, although the. 

 very essence of Darwinism, is not a fixed and inflex- 

 ible adaptation, realized once for all at the outset ; it 

 includes a long progression and succession of modifi- 

 cations, adjusting themselves to changing circum- 

 stances, under which they may be more and more di- 

 versified, specialized, and in a just sense perfected. 

 ISTow, 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 ? Further- 

 more, 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 affirma- 

 tive response to the third is directly implied in the 

 following citation : 



" The word purpose has 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 adap- 

 tation 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 objec- 

 tion 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 



