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CHAPTER III. 



Mutual Adaptation in the Laws of Nature. 



To ascertain such laws of nature as we have been 

 describing, is the peculiar business of science. It 

 is only with regard to a very small portion of the 

 appearances of the universe, that science in any 

 strict application of the term, exists. In very few 

 departments of research have men been able to 

 trace a multitude of known facts to causes which 

 appear to be the ultimate material causes, or to 

 discern the laws which seem to be the most 

 general laws. Yet, in one or two instances, they 

 have done this, or something approaching to 

 this; and most especially in the instance of 

 that part of nature, which it is the object of this 

 treatise more peculiarly to consider. 



The apparent motions of the sun, moon, and 

 stars have been more completely reduced to their 

 causes and laws than any other class of pheno- 

 mena. Astronomy, the science which treats of 

 these, is already a wonderful example of the de- 

 gree of such knowledge which man may attain. 

 The forms of its most important laws may be 

 conceived to be certainly known ; and hundreds 

 of observers in all parts of the world are daily em- 

 ployed in determining, with additional accuracy, 



