27G THE GENESIS OF SPECIES. [Chap. 



afTirms that the limitations of human purposes and motives 

 arc by no means applicable to the Divine " purposes." Out 

 of many, say a thousand million, reasons for the institution 

 of the laws of the physical universe, some few are to a 

 certain extent conceivable by us ; and among these the 

 benclits, material and moral, accruing from them to men, 

 and to each individual man in every circumstance of his 

 life, i)lay a certain, perhaps a very subordinate, i)art." As 

 liaden Powell observes, " J low can we undertake to aflirm, 

 umid all the possibilities of things of which we confessedly 

 know so little, that a thousand ends and purposes may not 

 be answered, because we can trace none, or even imagine 

 none, which seem to our short-sighted faculties to be an- 

 swered in these particular arrangements ? " '* 



Tiie objection to the bull-dog's ferocity in connection 



'* In the same way Mr. Lewes, in criticising the Duke of Argyll's 

 "Reign of Law" {Fortnightly Revitw, July, 1807, p. 100), asks whether 

 wc should consider that luan wise who spilt a gallon of wine in order to 

 till a wui(;-glass ? But, because wc should not do so, it by no means 

 ftillows that we can argue from such an action to the action of (Jud in 

 the visible luiiverse. For the man's object, in tlie case supposed, is 

 biniply to (ill the wine-glass, and the wine spilt is so much loss. With 

 Ciod it may be entirely dilVerent in both respects. All these objections 

 are fully met by the principle thus laid down by St. Thomas Aquinas : 

 *' Quod si aliqua causa particularis deficiat a suo elFectu, hoc est propter 

 alicpiam causam particularem impcdiantem quo; continctur sub ordine 

 causae universalis. Untie cHectus ordinem causiE universalis nuUo modo 

 potest exire." . . . " Sicut indigcstio contingit pincter ordinem virtutis 

 nutritivaj ex aliquo impedimento, puta ex grossitie cibi, quam uccesse est 

 rcducere in aliam causam, et sic us(iue ad causam i)rimam univcrsalem. 

 Cum igitur Deus sit prima causa universalis non unius gcneri tantum, 

 hcd universaliter totius entis, impossibile est quod aliipiid contingat 

 prieter ordinem divinie gubernationis ; sed ex hoc ipso (juod alicjuid ex 

 una parte videtur exire ab ordine divina) providentiie, quo consideratur 

 secundam alitjuam particularem causam, necesse est quod in eundem 

 ordinem relabatur secundum aliam causam." — Sum. 27icol., p. i., q. 19, 

 a. 6, and q. 103, a. 7. 



»» " Unity of Worlds," Essay ii., § ii., p. 2C0. 



