110 THERE IS A FIRST CAUSE. 



have produced them, or can satisfy our minds 

 when we come to the bourne where observation 

 stops. And whithersoever we direct our contem- 

 plation-) upwards or downwards, forwards or back- 

 wards, in the extension of space, or in the suc- 

 cession of time, we really can find no boundary 

 no greatest, no smallest, no first, no last; and 

 yet, as appearance follows appearance in time, we 

 find that the whole are in succession, and that 

 nothing that now is could have been, if some- 

 thing had not been before it ; and yet, though 

 any one of those successions of appearances 

 (which we call the laws of nature,) can be sus- 

 pended by the action or resistance of some, al- 

 most any of the others, no one of them can be 

 destroyed or changed into another how much 

 soever its effects may be modified, we cannot 

 even imagine that any of them could have been 

 the first cause of any other, or could have existed 

 without something preceding. 



It is much the same with the productions of 

 nature as with the laws ; and it cannot be very 

 different, as the productions are just the results or 

 consequences of the laws. We see that the habits 

 of plants and animals, and the properties of com- 

 pound matter can be changed ; and when we once 

 observe how the change takesplace, we generally are 

 able, within certain limits, to bring it about. And, 

 just as we expect when we think over the matter 

 correctly, we find that we can effect the greatest 

 and the most beneficial changes, in those things 

 of which we have the most knowledge. Dead 

 substances we can manage the best, because we 

 can in most instances take them to pieces, and in 

 many we can put them together again. Veget- 



