32 FINAL CAUSES. 



ture, into which it is gradually transformed by the slow 

 and successive expansion and. development of all its parts. 

 The processes of nutrition do nothing more than fill up 

 the outlines already sketched on the living canvas. Every 

 organ, nay every fibre, resulting from this development, 

 contributes its share in the production of certain definite ef- 

 fects, 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 in- 

 volved in mystery, or the less replete with wonder. To 

 say that they are the results of chance conveys no informa- 

 tion; and is equivalent to the assertion that they are wholly 

 without a cause. Every one who is accustomed 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 correspond- 

 ing 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 phenomena we be- 

 hold are the efiects of certain causes, it might still be alleged, 

 as a bar to all farther reasoning, that these causes are not 

 only utterly unknown to us, but that their discovery is 

 wholly beyond the reach of our faculties. The argument 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, would shake the foundation of every kind of know- 

 ledge, even that which we regard as built upon the most 

 solid basis. Of causation, it is agreed that we know nothing: 

 all that we do know is, that one event succeeds another with 

 undeviating constancy. Now, if we were to probe this sub- 

 ject to the bottom, we should find that, in rigid strictness, 

 we have no certain knowledge of the existence of any thing, 

 save that of the sensations and ideas which are actually pass- 

 ing in our minds, and of which we are necessarily con- 



