21 
More and more as the subject develops itself under investi- 
gation, and as we pass from the individual to its species and 
thence to its genus, and so on upwards till we see the whole of 
the animal kingdom or the vegetable kingdom linked together, 
more and more does the fact, that what we call design is a rela- 
tive and not an absolute thing, become forced upon us ; and if 
the term is to be retained in conjunction with evolution, it 
must be allowed to have no such determinate meaning as has 
hitherto been applied to it by teleologists. Whether, however, 
these plans or types, specific or ordinal, were conceived in the 
Divine Mind simply and immediately upon, or long before, 
their execution, is beside the real question. Whether, too, 
each type as it appeared was a necessary result of the laws of 
God's evolution, is beside the question, which is this: Recog- 
nizing objective types as real facts in nature, did God as a 
Being external to creation conceive them in any way at all, or 
are they simply the necessary issue of “ concurrent conditions" ; 
all external agency being excluded ? I prefer to believe that God, 
as an external Personal agent, had something to do with them. 
I cannot see that the statements, — “ Every part [of an or- 
ganism] is the effect of a pre-existing part " (p. 617, Fortnightly 
Review, No. XVIII. 1868) ; that, “ the polarities of the organic 
substance assume the form " [of the organism] ; that, <6 the type 
emerges from the momenta" (p. 621), or that “the type (or 
arrangement of parts) is the result of concurrent conditions, not 
the cause of their concurrence" (p. 366), — throw any light 
upon the question at all ; they are the positivist's attempts at 
expression of facts, but are in no way explanatory, and simply 
amount to a denial of design of the types or forms of animals 
and vegetables ; that they were but the necessary result of 
[fortuitous ?] concurrent conditions. Have we not here some- 
thing very like the Lucretian fortuitous concourse of atoms? 
But suppose we admit that this materialistic or positive view 
is equally good with that of a Personal God, so far as both may 
be supposed to furnish a vera causa of the origin of organs and 
forms.* Then it is at this point that Revelation steps in and 
turns the balance in favour of a Personal God external to 
creation, and Who has worked by laws and evolved the present 
state of things from chaos. 
Mr. Lewes further remarks (p. 621), that — 
“ The type does not dominate the momenta, it emerges from them ; the 
animal organism is not cast in a mould, but the imaginary mould is the 
form which the polarities of the organic substances assume. It would seem 
* Mr. Lewes defines organs as structures possessing definite functions ; 
while he applies the word forms to rudimentary and useless structures. 
