Thus we have a third alternative presented to us.
Mr. Charles Darwin and his followers deny design, as having any
appreciable share in the formation of organism at all.
Paley and the theologians insist on design, but upon a designer outside
the universe and the organism.
The third opinion is that suggested in the first instance and carried out
to a very high degree of development by Buffon. It was improved, and
indeed, made almost perfect by Dr. Erasmus Darwin, but too much neglected
by him after he had put it forward. It was borrowed, as I think we may
say with some confidence, from Dr. Darwin by Lamarck, and was followed up
by him ardently thenceforth, during the remainder of his life, though
somewhat less perfectly comprehended by him than it had been by Dr.
Darwin. It is that the design which has designed organisms, has resided
within, and been embodied in, the organisms themselves.
FAILURE OF THE FIRST EVOLUTIONISTS TO SEE THEIR POSITION AS TELEOLOGICAL.
(CHAPTER IV. OF EVOLUTION, OLD AND NEW.)
It follows from the doctrine of Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, if not
from that of Buffon himself, that the majority of organs are as purposive
to the evolutionist as to the theologian, and far more intelligibly so.
Circumstances, however, prevented these writers from acknowledging this
fact to the world, and perhaps even to themselves.
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