FINAL CAUSES. 



refine the soul, and transport it into regions of a 

 purer and more exalted being. 



A study which embraces so extensive a range of 

 objects, and which involves questions of such mo- 

 mentous interest to mankind, must necessarily be 

 arduous, and has required for its successful prose- 

 cution the strenuous exertions of the human 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 efforts : 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 sur- 

 rounds us. The reflection continually presents itself 

 that the portion of creation we are here permitted 

 to behold, is as nothing when compared with the 

 immensity of space, which, on every side, spreads 

 far beyond the sphere of our vision, and which the 

 power of human imagination is utterly inadequate 

 to comprehend. Of the planetary system, which 

 includes this earth, our knowledge is almost 

 entirely confined to the mathematical laws which 

 regulate the motions of the bodies that compose it, 

 and to the celestial mechanism which modern 

 analysis has discovered to be that most admirably 

 calculated to preserve their harmony and maintain 

 their stability. Still less have we the means of 

 penetrating into the remoter regions of the heavens? 



