2 FINAL CAUSES. 



of the Book of Nature, in the varied pages of 

 which they are inscribed in indelible characters. 

 On Man has been conferred the high privilege 

 of interpreting these characters, and of deriving 

 from their contemplation those ideas of grandeur 

 and sublimity, and those emotions of admiration 

 and of gratitude, which elevate and refine the 

 soul, and transport it into regions of a purer and 

 more exalted being. 



A study which embraces so extensive a range 

 of objects, and which involves questions of such 

 momentous interest to mankind, must necessarily 

 be arduous, and requires for its successful pro- 

 secution the strenuous exertions of the human 

 intellect, and the combined labours of different 

 classes of philosophers, during many ages. The 

 magnitude of the task is increased by the very 

 success of those previous efforts : for the diffi- 

 culties augment as the objects multiply, and the 

 eminence on which the accumulated knowledge 

 of centuries has placed us only discloses a wider 

 horizon, and the prospect of more fertile regions 

 of inquiry ; till at length the mind, conscious of 

 the inadequacy of its own powers to the compre- 

 hension of even a small part of the system of the 

 universe, is appalled by the overwhelming con- 

 sideration of the infinity that surrounds us. The 

 reflection continually presents itself that the 

 portion of creation we are here permitted to 

 behold is as nothing when compared with the 



