Necessity is the ruler of all we see--power, regularity--these two qualities make its nature.

Would you ask more ?--you can learn nothing: whether it be eternal--whether it compel us, its creatures, to new careers after that darkness which we call death--we cannot tell.

There leave we this ancient, unseen, unfathomable power, and come to that which, to our eyes, is the great minister of its functions.

This we can task more, from this we can learn more: its evidence is around us--its name is NATURE.

The error of the sages has been to direct their researches to the attributes of necessity, where all is gloom and blindness.