70 EXAMINATIONOF 



thing Is created with a view to the perfedion of 

 the whole ? What is reafonablenefs or htnefs ? 

 What is perfedion ? Are they not moral beings, 

 created folely by the human intellecl ? Are they 

 not arbitrary relations which we have contrived 

 to generalife ? They have no foundation but in 

 moral affinities, which, fo far from producing 

 any phyfical or real exiftence, change the nature 

 of truth, and confound the objects of our fen- 

 fations, of our perceptions, and of our under- 

 ftandings, with thofe of our fentiments, of our 

 paffions, and of our wills *, 



Much 



* The tranflator thinks it his duty to apprife the reader, that 

 here, as well as in feveral other parts of this work, the author 

 makes an ingenious attack againft the exiftence and utility of 

 final caufes. Every philofopher will admit the abfurdity of em- 

 ploying a final caufe as a phyfical principle. M. de BufFon, if 

 he meant only to expofe the mifapplication of final caufes, had 

 no occafion to betray fo much warmth and anxiety about an ob- 

 ject fo apparent. But, like too many of our modern French 

 writers, lie feems to neglect the diftinftion between final and phy- 

 fical caufes. Final caufes regard the defign or the utility of 

 particular ohjefls, whether that utility relates to man, to the ob- 

 jects themfelv^es, or to the general ftru<5ture of the univerfe. But 

 phyfical caufes are limited to the explanation of particular ef- 

 feds, or modes of exiftence. JVhy were mountains, feas, or in- 

 fers, created:"' If hat ufefid purpofes" do they feive? For the fo- 

 lution of thefe, and fimilar queftions, final caufes can alone be 

 employed. But if it be afked, Honv were mountains and feas 

 formed ? IIokv were infeds originally produced ; and ho'^v are 

 their differeut fpecies propagated I Thefe are ciueftions purely 

 phyfical. 



It may be f irther remarked, that final caiifcs are the greateO: 

 Humbling-ijlocks which lie hi the way of atheifts and materialifts. 



■ ' They 



