140 EXPLANATIONS. 



all things, it is not the less incumbent on science 

 to ascertain what is the influence which physical 

 forces, left to themselves, exercise in all natural 

 phenomena, and what is the part of direct action 

 which we must attribute to the supreme being, in 

 the revolutions to which nature has been sub- 

 jected. . . . It is now time for naturalists to 

 occupy themselves likewise, in their domain, in 

 inquiring within what limits we can recognise the 

 traces of a divine interposition, and within what 

 limits the phenomena take place in consequence 

 of a state of things immutably established from 

 the beginning of the creation. Let it not be said 

 that it is not given to man to sound these depths : 

 the knowledge he has acquired of so many hidden 

 mysteries in past ages, promises more extended 

 revelations. It is an error to which the mind, 

 from a natural inclination to indolence, allows 

 itself too easily to incline, to believe impossible 

 what it would take some trouble to investigate. 

 We generally would impose limits to our faculties, 

 rather than increase their range by their exer- 

 cise ; and the history of the sciences is present to 

 tell us, that there are few of the great truths now 

 recognised, which have not been treated as chi- 



