human friend and master; and all that we can learn, by observing the course of men's feelings and actions, tends to convince us, that this belief of the being and presence and government of God, leads to the most elevated and beneficial frame of mind of which man is capable. 2. How natural and almost inevitable is this persuasion of the reality of Final Causes and consequent belief in the personality of the Deity, we may gather by observing how constantly it recurs to the thoughts, even of those who, in consequence of such peculiarities of mental discipline as have been described, have repelled and resisted the impression. Thus, Laplace, of whom we have already spoken, as one of the greatest mathematicians of modern times, expresses his conviction that the supposed evidence of final causes will disappear as our knowledge advances, and that they only seem to exist in those cases where our ignorance leaves room for such a mistake. "Let us run over," he says, "the history of the progress of the human mind and its errors: we shall perpetually see final causes pushed away to the bounds of its knowledge. These These causes, which Newton removed to the limits of the solar system, were not long ago conceived to obtain in the atmosphere, and employed in explaining meteors: they are, therefore, in the eyes of the philosopher 1 nothing more than the expression of the ignorance in which we are of the real causes." We may observe that we have endeavoured to give a very different, and, as we believe, a far truer view of the effect which philosophy has produced on our knowledge of final causes. We have shown, we trust, that the notion of design and end is transferred by the researches of science, not from the domain of our knowledge to that of our ignorance, but merely from the region of facts to that of laws. We hold that, in this form, final causes in the atmosphere are still to be conceived to obtain, no less than in an earlier state of meteorological knowledge; and that Newton was right, when he believed that he had established their reality in the solar system, not expelled them from it. But our more peculiar business at present is to observe that Laplace himself, in describing the arrangements by which the stability of the solar system is secured, uses language which shows how irresistibly these arrangements suggest an adaptation to its preservation as an end. If in his expressions we were to substitute the Deity for the abstraction "nature" which he employs, his reflexion would coincide with that which the most religious philosopher would entertain. "It seems that God' has ordered everything in the heavens to ensure the duration of the planetary system, by views similar to those which He appears to us so admirably to follow upon the earth, for the preservation of animals and the perpetuity of species. This consideration alone would explain the disposition of the system, if it were not the business of the geometer to go further." It may be possible for the geometer to go further; but he must be strangely blinded by his peculiar pursuits, if, when he has discovered the mode in which these views are answered, he supposes himself to have obtained a proof that there are no views at all. It would be as if the savage, who had marvelled at the steady working of the steam-engine, should cease to consider it a work of art, as soon as the self-regulating part of the mechanism had been explained to him. The unsuccessful struggle in which those persons engage, who attempt to throw off the impression of design in the creation, appears in an amusing manner through the simplicity of the ancient Roman poet of this school. Lucretius maintains that the eye was not made for seeing, nor the ear for hearing. But the terms in which he recommends this doctrine show how hard he * Il semble que la nature ait tout disposé dans le ciel, pour assurer la durée du systême planétaire, par des vues semblables à celles qu'elle nous parait suivre si admirablement sur la terre, pour la conservation des individus et la perpétuité des espèces. -Syst. du Monde, p. 442. knew it to be for men to entertain such an opinion. His advice is Illud in his rebus vitium vehementer et istum iv. 823. '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." 3. 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 enquiries, hath intercepted the severe and diligent enquiry 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 enquiry; 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 * Rapports du Physique et du Moral de l'Homme, i. 299. |