FINAL CAUSES. 7 



which affords just grounds for exultation in the 

 achievements of the human intellect. 



In the investigation of the powers which are 

 concerned in the phenomena of living beings 

 we meet with difficulties incomparably greater 

 than those that attend the discovery of the 

 physical forces by which the parts of inanimate 

 matter are actuated. The elements of the inor- 

 ganic world are few and simple ; the combina- 

 tions they present are in most cases easily unra- 

 velled ; and the powers which actuate their 

 motions, or effect their union and their changes, 

 are reducible to a small number of general laws, 

 of which the results may, for the most part, be an- 

 ticipated, and exactly determined by calculation. 

 What law, for instance, can be more simple than 

 that of gravitation, to which all material bodies, 

 whatever be their size, figure, or other properties, 

 and whatever be their relative positions, are 

 equally subjected ; and of which the observa- 

 tions of modern astronomers have rendered it 

 probable that the influence extends to the 

 remotest regions of space ? The most un devi- 

 ating regularity is exhibited in the motions of 

 those stupendous planetary masses, which con- 

 tinually roll onwards in the orbits prescribed 

 by this all-pervading force. Even the slighter 

 perturbations occasioned by their mutual influ- 

 ence are but direct results of the same general 



