Similar considerations may apply to the mould-fungi and other very low organisms, with spores dispersed through the air in countless myriads, but of which only an infinitesimal portion find opportunity for development. The myriads perish. The exceptional 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 omnipresent scavenger-police of Nature), no good ground appears for arguing either wasteful excess or absence of design from the vast disparity between their potential and their actual numbers. The reserve and the active members of the force should both be counted in, ready as they always and everywhere are for service. Considering their ubiquity, persistent vitality, and promptitude of action upon fitting occasion, the suggestion would rather be that, while ". . . thousands at His bidding speed, And post o'er land and ocean without rest, They also serve [which] only stand and wait." Finally, Darwinian teleology has the special advantage of accounting for the imperfections and failures as well as for successes. It not only accounts for them, but turns them to practical account. It explains the seeming waste as being part and parcel of a great economical process. Without the competing multitude, no struggle for life; and without this, no natural selection and survival of the fittest, no continuous adaptation to changing surroundings, no diversification and improvement, leading from lower up to higher and nobler forms. So the most puzzling things of all to the old-school teleologists are the principia of the Darwinian. In this system the forms and species, in all their variety, are not mere ends in themselves, but the whole a series of means and ends, in the contemplation of which we may obtain higher and more comprehensive, and perhaps worthier, as well as more consistent, views of design in Nature than heretofore. At least, it would appear that in Darwinian evolution we may have a theory that accords with if it does not explain the principal facts, and a teleology that is free from the common objections. But is it a teleology, or rather--to use the new-fangled term--a dysteleology? That depends upon how it is held. Darwinian evolution (whatever may be said of other kinds) is neither theistical nor nontheistical. Its relations to the question of design belong to the natural theologian, or, in the larger sense, to the philosopher. So long as the world lasts it will probably be open to any one to hold consistently, in the last resort, either of the two hypotheses, that of a divine mind, or that of no divine mind. There is no way that we know of C by which the alternative may be excluded. Viewed philosophically, the question only is, Which is the better supported hypothesis of the two?