I see the universe as a creation of God that has a mind/will of it's own.
Maybe accident/mutation are too strong a word(s). To adjust or adapt seems more accurate.
Describing God using the terms “mind,” “will” and “reason” takes me back to the catechism class where I was taught that God created man in His image.
I now prefer to think that God, if there is a God, is beyond our knowledge - transcendent.
The closing words in Jones’ book are ...
“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breather into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed laws of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”