ON FINAL CAUSE. 259 



every time it approaclies the earth; or that some adequate 

 local cause wrought that conflagration in the metropolis. But 

 now, suppose this coincidence of the comet's jK'vir/ee and the 

 conflagration should recur a number of times ? The reason 

 would then see, in the frequency and regularity of that recur- 

 rence, a new p^tenomenon, additional to the individual ones of 

 comet and fire; a new effect as much requiring its own adequate 

 cause, as each of these demands its physical cause. This 

 re2"ular recurrence of the coincidence is now an additional fact. 

 It cannot he accounted for by fortuity. Its regularity forbids 

 that supposition. The physical cause of each event, comet's 

 approach and conflagration, is adequate, each to the production 

 of its own effect. But the new effect to be accounted for is 

 the concurrence. This is regular ; but we know that the sure 

 attribute of the results of blind chance or fortuity is uncertainty, 

 irregularity, confusion. The very first recurrence of such a 

 coincidence begets a faint, probable expectation of a new, 

 connecting cause. All logicians agree that this probability 

 mounts up, as the instances of regular concurrence are multi- 

 plied, in a geometric ratio ; and when the instances become 

 numerous, the expectation of an additional coordinating cause 

 becomes the highest practical certainty. It becomes rationally 

 impossible to believe that these frequent and regular concur- 

 rences of the effects came from the blind, fortuitous coincidence 

 of the physical causes, acting, each, separately from the other. 



10. The repl case, then, is this. Each physical cause, as such, 

 is only efficient of the immediate, blind result next to it. 

 Grant it the conditions, and it can do this one thing always, 

 and always as blindly as the first time. Gravity will cause the 

 mass thrown into the air to fall back to the earth, to fall any- 

 where, or on anything, gravity neither knowing nor caring 

 where. But here are several batteries of cannon set in array 

 to break down an enemy's wall. What we observe as fact is, 

 that the guns throw solid shot convergently at every dischai-ge, 

 upon a single fixed spot in the opposing curtain, with the 

 evident design to concentrate their force and break down one 

 chasm in that wall. Now, it is a mere mockery to say that, 

 given the cannon and the balls, the explosive force of gun- 

 powder, and gravity, the fall of these shots is accounted for. 

 These physical causes would account for their random fall, 

 anywhere, uselessly, or as probably upon the heads of the 

 gunners' friends. The thing to be accounted for is their regular 

 convergence. This is an additional fact : the blind physical 

 causes do not and cannot account for it, — it discloses design. 



11. The human eye, for instance, is composed of atoms of 

 oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, with a few others of 



