24 FINAL CAUSES. 



this developement, contributes its share in the 

 production of certain definite effects, which we 

 constantly witness taking place around us, as 

 well as experience in our own persons. But 

 these effects, though so familiar to us, are not on 

 that account the less involved in mystery, or the 

 less replete with wonder. To say that they are 

 the results of chance conveys no information ; 

 and is equivalent to the assertion that they are 

 wholly without a cause. Every one who is ac- 

 customed to reflect upon the operations of his 

 own mind must feel that such a conclusion is 

 contrary to the constitution of human thought ; 

 for if we are to reason at all, we can reason only 

 upon the principle that for every effect there 

 must exist a corresponding cause ; or, in other 

 words, that there is an established and invariable 

 order of sequence among the changes which take 

 place in the universe. 



But though it be granted that all the pheno- 

 mena we behold are the effects of certain causes, 

 it might still be alleged, as a bar to all further 

 reasoning, that these causes are not only utterly 

 unknown to us, but that their discovery is wholly 

 beyond the reach of our faculties. The argu- 

 ment is specious only because it is true in one 

 particular sense, and that a very limited one. 

 Those who urge it, do not seem to be aware that 

 its general application, in that very same sense, 



