THAT CAUSE IS GOD. Ill 



ables rank next ; after them animals, and then 

 ourselves in so far as we are material. But, 

 even in the simplest, that is, in the best under- 

 stood of these cases, we find a boundary which we 

 cannot pass. No art of man, and not any process 

 of nature which we know, can make an eagle 

 graze on the common like a goose; as little can 

 the lion be made literally to " eat straw with the 

 ox ;" and even in dead matter, we, in every case, 

 come at last, (and the road is seldom a long one, 

 though often difficult to find,) to substances which 

 we call " simple " and as those simples are not 

 convertible the one into the other, and as they are 

 all as necessary to the things and appearances of 

 nature, as well as the laws are, the whole must 

 have had a simultaneous origin. Whether, there- 

 fore, we look at the objects or the events in nature, 

 we are alike convinced that they could not of 

 themselves have begun, but must have had their 

 origin in ONE, and One greater than them all 

 One who knew before any of them was in exist- 

 ence, how they all were to act, singly or in concert, 

 and what were to be the whole of their appear- 

 ances, throughout the entire period of their suc- 

 cession. That is the ultimate lesson which con- 

 cludes the book of nature ; and if we read that 

 book far enough "with our own eyes," we are 

 sure to arrive at it ; and there is this consolation 

 in the matter, that instead of our tiring of it, it 

 ceases to be felt as a task and becomes play, the 

 moment we enter upon it or, at least, the moment 

 that we become in earnest with it. 



There are various other principles and properties 

 which it is desirable that they should know, who 

 are anxious to observe nature with pleasure and 

 L 2 



