FINAL CAUSES. 19 



able physical agents, such as heat, light, electricity, 

 and magnetism ; and they include also the pheno- 

 mena which take place in organized bodies, and 

 which are referable to the operation of certain 

 physical powers, appertaining to particular struc- 

 tures, such as muscular contraction and nervous 

 irritation ; phenomena which, as we shall after- 

 wards find, are not reducible to any of the former 

 laws, but are apparently peculiar to the living state. 

 The second class of laws comprises those which 

 are founded on the relation of means to an end ; 

 and which are usually denominated Jinal causes. 

 They involve the operations of mind, in conjunction 

 with those of matter. They pre-suppose intention 

 or design ; a supposition which implies intelligence, 

 thought, motives, volition, — particulav purposes to 

 be answered, requiring the agency of powers and 

 of instruments adapted to the production of the in- 

 tended effects : — the knowledge of the properties 

 of matter, the selection and choice of particular 

 means, and the power of employing them in an 

 effective manner. These purposes may themselves 

 be subservient to more general objects, and these 

 objects again may be subordinate to remoter ends; 

 so that the whole shall comprehend a systematic 

 plan of operations, conducive, on the most enlarged 

 views, to ultimate and general good. 



The study of these final causes is, in some mea- 

 sure, forced upon our attention by even the most 

 superficial survey of nature. It is impossible not 

 to recognise the character of intention, which is so 

 indelibly impressed upon every part of the structure 

 both of vegetable and animal beings, and which 

 marks the whole series of phenomena connected 



