4 FINAL CAUSES. 



attract our notice, to excite our curiosity, and to 

 animate our inquiries. Splendid as are the mo- 

 numents of divine power and wisdom displayed 

 throughout the firmament, in objects fitted by 

 their stupendous magnitude to impress the ima- 

 gination and overpower us by their awful gran- 

 deur, not less impressive, nor less replete with 

 wonder, are the manifestations of those attributes 

 in the minuter portions of nature, which are 

 more on a level with our senses, and more within 

 the reach of our comprehension. The modern 

 improvements of optical science, which have 

 expanded our prospects into the more distant 

 regions of the universe, have likewise brought 

 within our range of vision the more diminutive 

 objects of creation, and have revealed to us 

 many of the secrets of their structure arid ar- 

 rangement. But, farther, our reason tells us 

 that, from the infinite divisibility of space, there 

 still exist worlds far removed from the cogni- 

 zance of every human sense, however assisted 

 by the utmost refinements of art ; worlds occu- 

 pied by the elementary corpuscles of matter, 

 composing, by their various configurations, sys- 

 tems upon systems, and comprising endless 

 diversities of motions, of complicated changes, 

 and of widely extended series of causes and 

 effects, destined for ever to remain invisible to 

 human eyes, and inscrutable to human science. 

 Thus, in whatever field we pursue our in- 



