hard he knew it to be for men to entertain such an opinion. His advice is Illud in his rebus vitium vehementer et istum 'Gainst their preposterous error guard thy mind Undoubtedly the poet is so far right, that a most "vehement" caution and vigilant "premeditation" are necessary to avoid the "vice and error" of such a persuasion. The study of the adaptations of the human frame is so convincing, that it carries the mind with it, in spite of the resistance suggested by speculative systems. Cabanis, a modern French physiological writer of great eminence, may be selected as a proof of this. Both by the general character of his own speculations, and by the tone of thinking prevalent around him, the consideration of design in the works of nature was abhorrent from his plan. Accordingly, he joins in repeating Bacon's unfavourable mention of final causes. Yet when he comes to speak of the laws of reproduction of the human race, he appears to feel himself compelled to admit the irresistible manner in which such views force themselves on the mind. "I regard," he says, "with the great Bacon, the philosophy of final causes as barren; but I have elsewhere acknowledged that it was very difficult for the most cautious man (l'homme le plus reservé) never to have recourse to them in his explanations.” * III. It may be worth our while to consider for a moment the opinion here referred to by Cabanis, of the propriety of excluding the consideration of final causes from our natural philosophy. The great authority of Bacon is usually adduced on this subject. "The handling of final causes," says he, "mixed with the rest in physical inquiries, hath intercepted the severe and diligent inquiry of all real and physical causes, and given men the occasion to stay upon these satisfactory and specious causes, to the great arrest and prejudice of farther discovery." + A moment's attention will show how well this representation agrees with that which we have urged, and how far it is from dissuading the reference to final causes in reasonings like those on which we are employed. Final causes are to be excluded from physical inquiry; that is, we are not to assume that we know the objects of the Creator's design, and put this assumed purpose in the place of a physical cause. We are not to think it a sufficient account of the clouds that they are for watering the earth (to take Bacon's examples), or "that the solidness of the earth is for the station and mansion of living creatures." The physical philosopher has it for his business to trace clouds to the laws of evaporation and condensation ; to determine the magnitude and mode of action of the forces of cohesion and crystallisation by which the * Rapports du Physique et du Moral de l'Homme, i., 299. + De Augment. Sc. ii., 105. materials of the earth are made solid and firm. This he does, making no use of the notion of final causes: and it is precisely because he has thus established his theories independently of any assumption of an end, that the end, when, after all, it returns upon him and cannot be evaded, becomes an irresistible evidence of an intelligent legislator. He finds that the effects, of which the use is obvious, are produced by most simple and comprehensive laws; and when he has obtained this view, he is struck by the beauty of the means, by the refined and skilful manner in which the useful effects are brought about;-points different from those to which his researches were directed. We have already seen, in the very case of which we have been speaking, namely, the laws by which the clouds are formed and distribute their showers over the earth, how strongly those who have most closely and extensively examined the arrangements there employed (as Howard, Dalton, and Black) have been impressed with the harmony and beauty which these contrivances manifest. We may find a further assertion of this view of the proper use of final causes in philosophy, by referring to the works of one of the greatest of our philosophers, and one of the most pious of our writers, Boyle, who has an Essay on this subject. "I am by all means,” says he, "for encouraging the contemplation of the celestial part of the world, and the shining globes that adorn it, and especially the sun and moon, in order to raise our admiration of the stupendous power and wisdom of Him who was able to frame such immense bodies; and notwithstanding their vast bulk and scarce conceivable rapidity, keep them for so many ages constant both to the lines and degrees of their motion, without interfering with one another. And doubtless we ought to return thanks and praises to the Divine goodness for having so placed the sun and moon, and determined the former, or else the earth, to move in particular lines for the good of men and other animals; and how disadvantageous it would have been to the inhabitants of the earth if the luminaries had moved after a different manner. I dare not, however, affirm that the sun, moon, and other celestial bodies were made solely for the use of man: much less presume to prove one system of the world to be true and another false; because the former is better fitted to the convenience of mankind, or the other less suited, or perhaps altogether useless to that end." This passage exhibits, we conceive, that combination of feelings which ought to mark the character of the religious natural philosopher; an earnest piety ready to draw nutriment from the contemplation of established physical truths; joined with a philosophical caution, which is not seduced by the anticipation of such contemplations, to pervert the strict course of physical inquiry. It is precisely through this philosophical care and scrupulousness that our views of final causes acquire their force and value as aids to religion. The object of such views is not to lead us to physical truth, but to connect such truth, obtained by its proper processes and methods, with our views of God, the master of the universe, through those laws and relations which are thus placed beyond dispute. Bacon's comparison of final causes to the vestal virgins is one of those poignant sayings, so frequent in his writings, which it is not easy to forget. "Like them," he says, "they are dedicated to God, and are barren." But to any one who reads his work it will appear in what spirit this was meant. "Not because those final causes are not true and worthy to be inquired, being kept within their own province." (Of the Advancement of Learning, b. ii., p. 142.) If he had had occasion to develope his simile, full of latent meaning as his similes so often are, he would probably have said, that to these final causes barrenness was no reproach, seeing they ought to be, not the mothers but the daughters of our natural sciences; and that they were barren, not by imperfection of their nature, but in order that they might be kept pure and undefiled, and so fit ministers in the temple of God. CHAP. VIII.-On the Physical Agency of the Deity. I. We are not to expect that physical investigation can enable us to conceive the manner in which God acts upon the members of the universe. The question, "Canst thou by searching find out God?" must silence the boastings of science as well as the repinings of adversity. Indeed, science shows us, far more clearly than the conceptions of every day reason, at what an immeasurable distance we are from any faculty of conceiving how the universe, material and moral, is the |