GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 231 



gained by an enthusiastic application of them beyond 

 their legitimate bounds. The present condition of 

 the Darwinian doctrine of natural selection clearly 

 proves this, and the various substitutes for it, or 

 additions to it, now proposed are all equally partial. 

 Instead of regarding any of these theories as final or 

 sufficient, we should scrutinise them as to their 

 validity and extent of application, and we shall find 

 that, in so far as any of them have reality, they cover 

 only a few facts, and still leave a boundless region to 

 be explored, even with reference to the modes of the 

 development. 



6. Even our ideas of design and final cause must 

 be held in subjection to the infinite nature of God. 

 Crude views on these subjects have, perhaps, aided in 

 producing present scepticism as to natural theology. 

 When Hegel says that all nature is final cause, and 

 that it isjHDt necessary to conceive of final cause as 

 it exists in our consciousness, he does not necessarily 

 imply that nature itself is God, but that God s design 

 .as manifested in nature is only in a small part inte 

 ligible to us. We are constantly discovering new 

 uses and adaptations previously unknown ; and in ti 

 Divine mind there must be infinite designs and 

 objects as yet quite inaccessible to us. We may learn 

 this by a moment s thought of the development 

 geological time. An intelligent observer introduce 

 to the earth when tenanted only by aquatic mverte 

 brates would reason as to this as a finality ; but 



