We have only to say that the Darwinian system, as we understand it, coincides well with the theistic view of Nature. It not only acknowledges purpose (in the Contemporary Reviewer's sense), but builds upon it; and if purpose in this sense does not of itself imply design, it is certainly compatible with it, and suggestive of it. Difficult as it may be to conceive and impossible to demonstrate design in a whole of which the series of parts appear to be contingent, the alternative may be yet more difficult and less satisfactory. If all Nature is of a piece--as modern physical philosophy insists-- then it seems clear that design must in some way, and in some sense, pervade the system, or be wholly absent from it. Of the alternatives, the predication of design--special, general, or universal, as the case may be--is most natural to the mind; while the exclusion of it throughout, because some utilities may happen, many adaptations may be contingent results, and no organic maladaptations could continue, runs counter to such analogies as we have to guide us, and leads to a conclusion which few men ever rested in. It need not much trouble us that we are incapable of drawing clear lines of demarkation between mere utilities, contingent adaptations, and designed contrivances in Nature; for we are in much the same condition as respects human affairs and those of lower animals. What results are comprehended in a plan, and what are incidental, is often more than we can readily determine in matters open to observation. And in plans executed mediately or indirectly, and for ends comprehensive and far-reaching, many purposed steps must appear to us incidental or meaningless. But the higher the intelligence, the more fully will the incidents enter into the plan, and the more universal and interconnected may the ends be. Trite as the remark is, it would seem still needful to insist that the failure of a finite being to compass the designs of an infinite mind should not invalidate its conclusions respecting proximate ends which he can understand. It is just as in physical science, where, as our knowledge and grasp increase, and happy discoveries are made, wider generalizations are formed, which commonly comprehend, rather than destroy, the earlier and partial ones. So, too, the "sterility" of the old doctrine of final causes in science, and the presumptuous uses made of them, when it was supposed that every adapted arrangement or structure existed for this or that direct and special end, and for no other, can hardly be pressed to the conclusion that there are no final causes, i.e., ultimate reasons of things.[XIII-4] Design in Nature is distinguished from that in human affairs--as it fittingly should be--by all comprehensiveness and system. Its theological synonym is Providence. Its application in particular is surrounded by similar insoluble difficulties; nevertheless, both are bound up with theism.