20 FINAL CAUSES. 



with their history. Microscopic observations teach 

 us that the embryo of an organic being contains, 

 at a certain period of its formation, the rudiments 

 of the future vegetable or animal structure, into 

 which it is gradually transformed by the slow and 

 successive expansion and developement of its parts. 

 The subsequent processes of nutrition do nothing 

 more than fill up the outlines already sketched on 

 the living canvass. Every organ, nay every fibre, 

 resulting from this developement, contributes its 

 share in the production of certain definite effects, 

 which we constantly see 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 involved in mystery, or the less 

 replete with wonder. To say that they are the re- 

 sults of chance conveys no information ; 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 con- 

 stitution 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 corresponding 

 cause ; or, in other words, that there is an estab- 

 lished and invariable order of sequence among the 

 changes which take place in the universe. 



But though it be granted that all the phenomena 

 we behold are the effects of certain causes, it might 

 still be alleged, as a bar to all further reasoning, 

 that these causes are not only unknown to us, but 

 that their discovery is wholly beyond the reach of 

 our faculties. The argument is specious only be- 

 cause it is true in one particular sense ; but that 



