18 FINAL CAUSES. 



A study which embraces so extensive a range of objects, 

 and which involves questions of such momentoue interest 

 to mankind, must necessarily be arduous, and requires for 

 its successful prosecution the strenuous exertions of the hu- 

 man intellect, and the combined labours of different classes 

 of philosophers, during many ages. The magnitude of the 

 task is increased by the very success of those previous ef- 

 forts: for the difficulties augment as the objects multiply, 

 and the eminence on which the accumulated knowledge of 

 centuries has placed us only discloses a wider horizon, and 

 the prospect of more fertile regions of inquiry; till at length 

 the mind, conscious of the inadequacy of its own powers to 

 the comprehension of even a small part of the system of the 

 universe, is appalled by the overwhelming consideration of 

 the infinity that surrounds us. The reflection continually 

 presents itself that the portion of creation we are here per- 

 mitted to behold is as nothing, when compared with the 

 immensity of space, which, on every side, spreads far be- 

 yond the sphere of our vision, and, indeed, far beyond the 

 powers of human imagination. Of the planetary system, 

 which includes this earth, our knowledge is almost entirely 

 limited to the mathematical laws that regulate the motions 

 of the bodies which compose it, and to the celestial me- 

 chanism which patient investigation has at length discovered 

 to be that most admirably calculated to preserve their har- 

 mony and maintain their stability. Still less have we the 

 means of penetrating into the remoter regions of the heavens, 

 where the result of our investigations respecting the myriads 

 of luminous bodies they contain amounts to little more than 

 the knowledge of their existence, of their countless num- 

 bers, and of the immeasurable distances at which they are 

 dispersed throughout the boundless realms of space. 



Measured on the vast scale of the universe, the globe we 

 inhabit appears but as an atom; and yet, within the compass 

 of this atom, what an inexhaustible variety of objects is con- 

 tained: what an endless diversity of phenomena is presented; 

 what wonderful changes are occurring in rapid and perpetual 



