176 LETTERS TO BROTHER JOHN. 



then the actions which constitute the life and the 

 health of the human machine would have been as 

 unerringly executed as the revolutions which con- 

 stitute the health and the life of the planetary 

 scheme. A well-constructed watch, if properly 

 defended from external injury, will indicate the 

 hours of the day as infallibly as the moon will 

 revolve in her orbit in her given month : so also, 

 under like circumstances, would those movements 

 and revolutions of the fluids which constitute the 

 life of the human machine be executed with the 

 same unfailing precision, provided only that the 

 law of nutrication be properly fulfilled, and its 

 proper position among the other systems of the 

 universe duly observed. All things were created 

 with a view to the fulfilment of a final cause ; and it 

 is insulting to the Creator to suppose that He has 

 attempted to attain to a final cause by means which 

 are inefficient to its accomplishment. But it may 

 be denied that other systems are infallible. It may 

 be said, that there are occasionally certain signs 

 observable in the heavens which seem to indicate 

 that then and there a world has gone to pieces. 

 Be it so. But who shall say that it has gone to 

 pieces before it had fulfilled its final cause 

 before it had existed its appointed term ? I am not 



