CHAFfER VIII. 



ON THE MEANS BY WHICH COMPOUND BOWES 

 ARE FORMED. 



IT has been my especial object, so far as I have 

 gone, to prove, that all the phenomena which take 

 place in the universe, are effects only of produc- 

 ing causes ; that these effects are ends, of which 

 there, of necessity, must have been a beginning; 

 that the power which was from the beginning, 

 is the cause to which the ultimate effect is to 

 be referred; (e. g.) action is the effect, of which 

 organisation is the cause ; organisation is the 

 effect of which the principle of life is the cause ; 

 thinking is an effect of which the thinking prin- 

 ciple is the cause. All the children of any one 

 family are ends of which their parents are the 

 beginning; these parents are the offspring of 

 former parents ; the succession, therefore, may 

 be traced, of animals and of vegetables, to first 

 parents ; to first parents which did not produce 



