LAW; — ITS DEFINITIONS. 83 



gives no reply. If this be so, it is strange that 

 Nature should have given us the faculties which 

 impel us to ask this question — ay, and to ask it 

 more eagerly than any other. It is indeed true 

 that there is a point beyond which we need not 

 ask it, because the answer is inaccessible. But 

 this is equally true of the questions What, and 

 How. We cannot reach Final Causes any more 

 than Final Purposes. For every cause which we 

 can detect, there is another cause which lies be- 

 hind : and for every purpose which we can see, 

 there are other purposes which lie beyond. 



And so it is true that all things in Nature may 

 either be regarded as means or as ends — for they 

 are always both — only that Final Ends we can 

 never see. For, as Bishop Butler truly says in 

 his Analogy,* " We know what we ourselves aim 

 at as final ends, and what courses we take merely 

 as means conducing to these ends. But we are 

 greatly ignorant how far things are considered by 

 the Author of Nature under the simple notion of 

 means and ends, — so as that it may be said this 

 is merely an end, and that merely means, in His 



* Butler's Analogy, chap. iv. 



