resolve the whole into an immediate effect of the Divine interposition. We shall have occasion to recur to some instances of this sort in the sequel; for the present, the following passage from an eminent philosopher will sufficiently exemplify the case:Laplace observes,

"Tous les événements, ceux même qui par leur petitesse, semblent ne pas tenir aux grandes lois de la nature, en sont une suite aussi nécessaire que les révolutions du soleil. Dans l'ignorance des liens qui les unissent au systéme entier de l'univers, on les a fait dépendre des causes finales, ou du hasard; mais ces causes imaginaires ont été successivement reculées avec les bornes de nos connaissances, et disparaissent entiérement devant la saine philosophie qui ne voit en elles, que l'expression de l'ignorance où nous sommes des véritables causes*."

From this passage it is manifest that the author uses the term "final cause," simply in the sense of "arbitrary agency," or "direct intervention:" or, in other words, employs the term "final" as equivalent to "ultimate."

To add another remark:

The inquiry into final causes may fairly call for the exercise of much caution in distinguishing real cases of adaptation from many which are but apparent and fanciful. Far-fetched and overstrained instances of this kind are sometimes urged where

* Essai Philosophique sur les Probabilités, p. 2.

no real or substantial indications of design can be rationally admitted. And those who are bent on finding such evidences everywhere, are too apt hastily to decide that one result was actually ordained with a special view to another, where the connexion is too remote to allow us reasonably to consider it so. Such a course is apt to produce no other result than that of exposing to reproach the whole investigation of final causes. And the judicious inquirer will perceive at once the injury done to the truth by weak and delusive arguments adduced in its support, and how little need there is for such doubtful aid in the abundance of substantial evidences with which we are surrounded.

Use of Final Causes in Science.

THE only case in which there can be any reasonable ground for dispute about the use of terms, is where they may be so chosen as to lead to ambiguity or mistake, as to the ideas for which they stand.

Now much discussion has arisen as to the investigation of final causes; and, especially, whether the study of them be a legitimate part of the province of natural philosophy. But all dispute may, I conceive, be avoided, simply by attention to the precise meaning

of the term.

According to what was above observed, we certainly may agree to use the term "final cause" as simply equivalent to describing the fact of the

adjustment which we actually observe. Our meaning will then be totally free from all ambiguity. But then, this is only an inconvenient and circuitous way of expressing what would be more clearly and simply described by the plainer terms, "fitness," " arrangement," "adaptation," of things to each other.

On these grounds I agree, therefore, with those who prefer to discard altogether the use of the term "final cause," and to employ in its stead only the plain terms "adjustment," &c., which express the facts we actually observe or inductively collect.

We should thus be relieved from all controversy about the introduction of final causes in natural philosophy. Since no dispute exists as to the propriety, nay necessity, of considering those adaptations and arrangements in our physical inquiries which are in a great measure forced on our observation, and without which our researches would be miserably defective in their most valuable, instructive, and important results.

In regard to the reasoning, we should thus escape all danger of perplexing (even in appearance) the order and chain of it; which is often greatly entangled by the mere introduction of an ambiguous term. By adhering to these more simple and perspicuous modes of expression, we should more palpably preserve that distinctness of meaning in form, which, at all events, must be preserved in substance. We shall keep clear the inferences from the order of physical causes, and the study of the

causes themselves: in other words, we shall not confound physical causes with moral agency; but shall be prepared, in the only sound and legitimate way, to deduce the indications of the latter from the former.

The term "final cause," employed in the sense at first explained, as that which it must in strictness bear; viz., as involving a reference to the processes of creative intelligence; is doubtless most improperly introduced into the investigation by which we advance to the elementary truths of natural philosophy. And manifestly for this reason, that it expresses, and thus misleads us into making the assumption of the very thing which it ought to be our object to prove from the truths elicited by natural science; viz., the existence of creative intelligence, of an omnipotent and omniscient Creator.

But it has been contended that the study of "final causes" may be, and has been, of important use in physical discovery: and the well-known example is adduced of the discovery of the circulation of the blood by Harvey, in consequence of a reflection into which he was led on the probable use of the valves in the veins.

Let us keep to unambiguous terms, and the case merely shows that a good conjecture, derived from the observed fitness of the valves for such an office as would be discharged by them, if the circulation were a fact, led him to the right train of analogy, which he so completely verified by observation. In this way

it is often the case in the researches of the naturalist, that from observing the obvious purpose of some one organ, he is able to conjecture the probable use of some other, which, but for such analogy, would be totally obscure; and such conjectures, if well founded, seldom fail to be borne out by actual experimental proof.

The uses of things (simply so considered,) wherever they have been fairly traced and established, supply a perfectly just, and most useful ground of analogy for guiding us to inductive conclusions. The habit of observing such adaptations in actual cases suggests grounds of reasonable probability for expecting them in instances as yet untried; and such conjectures in skilful hands are of the utmost utility in physical inquiries; as we often noticed, in the course of our former illustrations.

So long, then, as we confine ourselves to the simple notion of the fact of adjustment, or use, without reference to moral or intellectual causation, we are not departing from sound physical analogies, which we have before contended are the only rational guides in those conjectures which lead to sound inductions.

The Economy of Causes.

ANOTHER instance of the use of final causes in physical investigation, on which much stress has been sometimes laid, is the reference to what has been