342 RELIGIOUS VIEWS. 



unique and final ; he laboured to reduce gravity 

 to some higher law, and the forces of other 

 physical operations to an analogy with those of 

 gravity, and declared that all these were but 

 steps in our advance towards a first cause. Be- 

 tween us and this first cause, the source of the 

 universe and of its laws, we cannot doubt that 

 there intervene many successive steps of possible 

 discovery and generalization, not less wide and 

 striking than the discovery of universal gravita- 

 tion : but it is still more certain that no extent 

 or success of physical investigation can carry us 

 to any point which is not at an immeasurable 

 distance from an adequate knowledge of Him. 



CHAPTER VII. 



On Final Causes. 



WE have pointed out a great number of instances 

 where the mode in which the arrangements of 

 nature produce their effect, suggests, as we con- 

 ceive, the belief that this effect is to be considered 

 as the end and purpose of these arrangements. 

 The impression which thus arises, of design and 

 intention exercised in the formation of the world, 

 or of the reality of Final Causes, operates on 

 men's minds so generally, and increases so con- 

 stantly on every additional examination of the 



