of design in the material universe," though we are confident that no
misrepresentation was intended, we are equally confident that it is
not at all warranted by the two passages cited in support of it. Here
are the passages:--

"If green woodpeckers alone had existed, or we did not know that there
were many black and pied kinds, I dare say that we should have thought
that the green color was a beautiful adaptation to hide this
tree-frequenting bird from its enemies."

"If our reason leads us to admire with enthusiasm a multitude of
inimitable contrivances in Nature, this same reason tells us, though
we may easily err on both sides, that some contrivances are less
perfect. Can we consider the sting of the wasp or of the bee as
perfect, which, when used against many attacking animals, cannot be
withdrawn, owing to the backward serratures, and so inevitably causes
the death of the insect by tearing out its viscera?"

If the sneer here escapes ordinary vision in the detached extracts,
(one of them wanting the end of the sentence,) it is, if possible,
more imperceptible when read with the context. Moreover, this perusal
inclines us to think that the "Examiner" has misapprehended the
particular argument or object, as well as the spirit, of the author in
these passages. The whole reads more naturally as a caution against
the inconsiderate use of final causes in science, and an illustration
of some of the manifold errors and absurdities which their hasty
assumption is apt to involve,--considerations probably analogous to
those which induced Lord Bacon rather disrespectfully to style final
causes "sterile virgins." So, if any one, it is here Bacon that
"sitteth in the seat of the scornful." As to Darwin, in the section