38 
Conclusion. 
The general result which will be gathered from this essay, 
the writer trusts, will he, that if the word “ design ” is to be 
retained at all, it must have a far more extended and qualified, 
if not very different meaning to, that which has hitherto been 
assigned to it. At present it fails to embrace a very large class 
of structural phenomena in living creatures : it fails to account 
for the so-called evils inflicted by physical forces which in their 
more beneficent forms are loudly applauded as witnesses to the 
goodness of God : thus, electricity in its use to man for tele- 
graphic purposes might be pronounced as designed as much as 
coal and steam ; but the teleologist hesitates to say it was 
made to kill when pent up in a thunderstorm. Or again, that 
although God has given us coal, natural theologians do not 
recognize the awful destruction of life which year after year is 
unavoidably made in getting it, as a judgment upon his pre- 
sumption. 
The word design, therefore, cannot be any longer entertained 
in so absolute a sense as heretofore. All those so-called 
“ physical evils 39 must be taken into account in any scheme of 
creation which professes to have at least some show of phi- 
losophy and comprehensiveness. And although, as the writer 
in the Quarterly (for July, 1869) has forcibly shown, that in 
such structures as the eye and hand design “ clings to the 
facts,” and by no mental effort can we throw it off — witness 
Lotze ! — yet to some students those innumerable cases of imper- 
fection, as seen in rudimentary organs and ill-adaptations, and 
so forth — “ bunglings,” as they have been called by materialists 
— w'eigh so heavily upon their minds that they cannot see the 
power of law which governs them, and which itself is a proof of 
design. There can be no law without a lawgiver. Order, 
method, law, and plan are but expressions of mind. In the 
words of Mr. Darwin, I say, “that the understanding revolts 
at such a conclusion, whether or not we are able to believe that 
every slight variation of structure, — the union of each pair in 
marriage, — the dissemination of each seed, — and other events, 
have all been ordained for some special purpose.” 
With regard, then, to the present aspect of the argument of 
design, two important deductions have been made, — first that 
design is never more than relative , and not absolute in nature ; 
and secondly, that we must no longer adopt any such com- 
parison between man ; s method and God’s method of making, as 
has been implied in the argument of design ; for, while man 
operates upon the materials furnished him by the world, com- 
bines and adjusts the forces of nature, and so elaborates 
