Also, “scornfully to repudiate” or to “sneer at the idea of any manifestation of design in the material universe,"[III-9] is one thing; while to consider, and perhaps to exaggerate, the difficulties which attend the practical application of the doctrine of final causes to certain instances, is quite another thing:  yet the Boston reviewers, we regret to say, have not been duly regardful of the difference.  Whatever be thought of Darwin’s doctrine, we are surprised that he should be charged with scorning or sneering at the opinions of others, upon such a subject.  Perhaps Darwin’ s view is incompatible with final causes—­we will consider that question presently—­ but as to the Examiner’s charge, that he “sneers at the idea of any manifestation 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we consider the sting of the wasp or of the bee as perfect, which, when used against many attacking animals, cannot be withdrawn, owing to the backward serratures, and so inevitably causes the death of the insect by tearing out its viscera?”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 equivalent to those which induced Lord Bacon to liken final causes to “vestal virgins.”  So, if any one, it is here Bacon that “sitteth in the seat of the scornful.”  As to Darwin, in the section from which the extracts were made, he is considering a subsidiary question, and trying to obviate a particular difficulty, but, we suppose, is wholly unconscious of denying “any manifestation of design in the material universe.”  He concludes the first sentence: 

—­“and consequently that it was a character of importance, and might have been acquired through natural selection; as it is, I have no doubt that the color is due to some quite distinct cause, probably to sexual selection.”