dispense with the idea of purpose, in the ordinary sense of the word, as
tantamount to design?

From two opposing sides we hear the first two questions answered in the
negative. And an affirmative response to the third is directly implied in
the following citation:


"The word purpose has been used in a sense to which it is, perhaps, worth
while to call attention. Adaptation of means to an end may be provided in
two ways that we at present know of: by processes of natural selection, and
by the agency of an intelligence in which an image or idea of the end
preceded the use of the means. In both cases the existence of the
adaptation is accounted for by the necessity or utility of the end. It
seems to me convenient to use the word purpose as meaning generally the end
to which certain means are adapted, both in these two cases and in any
other that may hereafter become known, provided only that the adaptation is
accounted for by the necessity or utility of the end. And there seems no
objection to the use of the phrase 'final cause' in this wider sense, if it
is to be kept at all. The word 'design' might then be kept for the special
case of adaptation by an intelligence. And we may then say that, since the
process of natural selection has been understood, purpose has ceased to
suggest design to instructed people, except in cases where the agency of
man is independently probable."--P.C.W., in the Contemporary Review for
September, 1875, p. 657.


The distinction made by this anonymous writer is convenient and useful, and
his statement clear. We propose to adopt this use of the terms purpose and
design, and to examine the allegation. The latter comes to this: "Processes