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SECTION IV.

Digression with respect to the Use and Abuse of the Speculation concerning Final Causes in Philosophical Inquiries.

THE objections against the speculation concerning Final Causes which have been hitherto under our consideration have been urged with the avowed design of invalidating the argument a posteriori for the existence of God. Another objection, however, still remains to be examined, which, although it has been frequently insisted on by authors who were far from wishing to favor the cause of atheism, it is of importance for us to obviate as completely as possible, before bringing the present argument to a conclusion, on account of its tendency to weaken that species of evidence on the subject which is most level to the apprehension of ordinary men. The qbjection I allude to is founded on the supposed incompetency of the human faculties to penetrate the designs of Providence, and on the consequent impiety and presumption of indulging ourselves in conjectures concerning the operations of infinite wisdom. Descartes has insisted much on this idea, and has carried it so far as to reject altogether such speculations from philosophy. "Let us never found any of our reasonings concerning physical phenomena on the ends which we may imagine God or nature had in view in the constitution of the universe; for this obvious reason, that we ought not to indulge so great a degree of arrogance as to suppose ourselves privy to the divine counsels; but, considering God as the efficient cause of all things, we shall see whatever conclusions the light of reason enables us to form from that knowledge of his attributes which he has been pleased to enable us to attain."*" And for this reason alone I am of opinion that the whole of this speculation concerning final causes is altogether useless, because I do not think, that, without rashness, we can presume to investigate the designs of God." Some observations much to the same purpose are to be found in the works Maupertuis and of Buffon.

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* Princip. Pars i. § 28.

Meditatio Quarta.

To this class of observations against final causes, a most satisfactory answer is given by Mr. Boyle in an Essay written expressly on the subject. The great merits of this excellent person as an experimental philosopher are universally known; but I do not think that his general philosophical views have attracted so much notice from his successors as they ought to have done. They appear to me to be uncommonly comprehensive and just, and to bear marks of a mind no less fitted for metaphysical and moral pursuits than for physical researches. In the work to which I refer at present, we find a pleasing union of philosophical depth with that exalted piety which formed a distinguished feature in the author's character. The world he considered (as he tells us himself)" as the temple of God, and man as born the priest of nature, ordained (by being qualified) to celebrate Divine Service, not only in it, but for it." With these views he could not fail to be irritated at the attempts made by Descartes to explode his favorite speculation concerning final causes; and the remarks he has made in reply to him contain a complete refutation of all that has been since advanced with a like view by Maupertuis and Buffon. His reasonings on this subject extend to so great a length that it is impossible to quote them here in the author's own language; and I am unwilling to weaken their force by an imperfect abstract. I must therefore content myself with extracting one of his remarks, from which the principal scope of his essay may be easily collected.

Suppose that a countryman, being in a clear day brought into the garden of some famous mathematician, should see there one of those curious gnomonic instruments that show at once the place of the sun in the zodiac, his declination from the equator, the day of the month, the length of the day, &c. &c. it would indeed be presumption in him, being unacquainted both with the mathematical disciplines, and the several intentions of the artist, to pretend or think himself able to discover all the ends for which so curious and elaborate a piece was framed; but when he sees it furnished with a style, with horary lines and numbers, and manifestly perceives

the shadow to mark from time to time the hour of the day, it would be no more a presumption than an error in him to conclude, that (whatever other uses the instrument was fit or designed for) it is a sun dial, that was meant to show the hour of the day." *

The essay of Mr Boyle now referred to appears to me to be sufficient to vindicate the investigation of final causes so far as it is subservient to the proof of a Deity. At the same time, I am ready to acknowledge that it is a speculation extremely liable to be abused, and which should always be conducted with modesty and diffidence. I acknowledge also that it has sometimes been introduced into natural philosophy in a manner which has led physical inquirers astray from the proper objects of their science. The Peripatetics, in particular, have been justly accused of blending final and physical causes together, and substituting conjectures concerning the ends which nature had in view for an explanation of her operations. I make this observation at present, as it furnishes me with an opportunity of vindicating Lord Bacon from the charge of a tendency to atheism, which was first brought against him by Cudworth, and has been repeated by some modern sceptics who wished to justify their own aversion to the speculation about final causes by Bacon's authority.

The passage to which Cudworth objects is as follows: "Incredibile est quantum agmen idolorum philosophiæ immiserit, naturalium operationum ad similitudinem actionum humanarum reductio."† "If," says Cudworth, "the advancer of learning here speaks of those who unskilfully attribute their own properties to inanimate bodies, (as when they say that matter desires forms as the female does the male, and that heavy bodies descend down by appetite towards the centre that they may rest therein) there is nothing to be reprehended in the passage. But if his meaning be extended further to take away all final causes from the things of nature,

In the same Essay Mr. Boyle has offered some very acute and judicious strictures on the abuses to which this research is liable, when incautiously and presumptuously pursued.

"It is incredible what a host of prejudices have been introduced into philosophy by a disposition to liken natural operations to the actions of men."

then it is the very spirit of atheism and infidelity. It is no idol of the cave or den, (to use that affected language) that is, no prejudice or fallacy imposed on ourselves from the attributing our own animalish properties to things without us, to think that the frame and system of this whole world was contrived by a perfect understanding and mind." +

In this passage the very learned author seems to have lost sight of his usual candor; and indeed I think it impossible that such expressions could have escaped him, if he had had the patience to peruse the whole of Bacon's writings, for there is no author, ancient or modern, who lies less open to any charge of scepticism. "I had rather believe," says he in one of his essays, "all the fables in the Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a mind. It is true that a little philosophy inclineth man's mind to atheism; but depth in philosophy bringeth men's minds about to religion; for while the mind of man looketh upon second causes scattered, it may sometimes rest in them and go no further; but when it beholdeth the chain of them confederate and linked together, it must needs fly to Providence and to Deity. Nay, even that school which is most accused of atheism doth most demonstrate religion, that is, the school of Leucippus, and Democritus, and Epicurus. For it is a thousand times more credible that four mutable elements, and one immutable fifth essence, duly and eternally placed, need no God, than that an army of infinite small portions, or seeds unplaced, should have produced this order and beauty without a Divine Marshal."

The real state of Bacon's opinion about final causes was plainly this, that the consideration of them was not properly a part of natural philosophy, but of metaphysics, or of natural theology; and that it was safer (at least for our physical inquiries) that they should be kept as distinct as possible from all other sciences; a caution which, although not so necessary in the present age, was highly useful in his time, in consequence of

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the absurd mixture of physical and final causes which occur in the writings of the Peripatetics, who then possessed an almost unlimited influence over the opinions of the learned. That he did not mean to censure the speculation about final causes when confined to its proper place, and applied to its proper purpose, appears from the following passage:

"The second part of metaphysics is the investigation of final causes, which I object to, not as a speculation which ought to be omitted, but as one which is generally introduced out of its proper place, by being connected with physical researches. If this were merely a fault of arrangement, I should not be disposed to lay great stress upon it; for arrangement is useful chiefly as a help to illustrate, and does not form an essential object in science. But in this instance a disregard to method has occasioned the most fatal consequences to philosophy, inasmuch as the consideration of final causes in physics has supplanted and banished the study of physical causes, the fancy amusing itself with unsubstantial explanations derived from the former, and diverting the curiosity from a steady prosecution of the latter." After illustrating this remark by various examples, Lord Bacon adds, "I would not, however, be understood by these observations to insinuate, that the final causes just mentioned may not be founded on truth, and in a metaphysical view extremely worthy of attention; but only, that when such disquisitions invade and overrun the appropriate province of physics, they are likely to lay waste and ruin that department of philosophy." The whole passage concludes with these words. "And so much concerning metaphysics; the part of which relating to final causes I do not deny may be met with as a subject of discussion, both in physical and in metaphysical treatises. But while in the latter of these it is introduced with propriety, in the former it is altogether misplaced; and that not merely because it violates the rules of a just order, but because it operates as a powerful obstacle to the progress of inductive science."

This passage, while it refutes in the most satisfacto

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