How far such a development of organic forms as I have supposed is consistent with design is a difficult question. It is apparent that when nature is conceived of as forming an organic whole, the universe becomes identified with the Absolute, of whose being relative nature is merely an expression. But is not the possession by relative existences of intellectual faculties, and of the marvellous power of insight or reflection, evidence that the same powers belong also to the absolute Being? The possession by man of intelligence is, in fact, proof that organic nature is intelligent. Still, however, the need of design is not apparent. Granting that relative nature has been evolved out of the absolute existence, such evolution can have taken only one course—that which led to man, who could appear only when the conditions of nature were fitted for him, and who _must_ appear when those conditions were so fitted. Moreover, as man was from the beginning the object of organic evolution, this must have taken place along the line which led to him, without any actually preconceived design or intention other than that which is implied in the preknowledge of man’s appearance. It does not follow, however, that other branches of organic nature besides that which ended in man may not have reached a stage of structural perfection. No doubt they have so done, and thus we can understand how it is that certain animals seem to have been, as Professor Owen asserts, “predestined and prepared for man.” The fitness pointed out by our great anatomist “of the organisation of the horse and ass for the needs of mankind, and the coincidence of the origin of the Ungulates having equine modifications of the perissodactyle structure with the period immediately preceding, or coincident with, the earliest evidence of the human race,” is certainly remarkable.[399] I cannot see in these facts, however, anything more than a necessary coincidence arising from the progress of evolution along different planes. It is possible, however, that Professor Owen may mean little more than this, and that he would be satisfied to admit the identity between the “predetermining” agent and organic nature, acting by virtue of the laws of its own evolutional impulse. So at least may be supposed from the fact that he rejects “the principle of direct or miraculous creation,” and recognises “a ‘natural law or secondary cause’ as operative in the production of species in orderly succession and progression.”[400] It is difficult to understand how otherwise there could be an “innate tendency to deviate from the parental type.”