These causes, which Newton pushed back to the limits of the solar system, were, even in his time, placed in the atmosphere to explain meteoric appearances.

They are nothing else, therefore, in the eyes of a philosopher, than _the expression of our ignorance of the true causes_." Supposing this to be a correct account of the fact, the inference which M.Comte deduces from it might seem to follow very much as a matter of course,--the inference, viz., that in proportion as Science advances and succeeds in subjecting one department of Nature after another to fixed and invariable laws, Theology, or the doctrine of Final Causes, must necessarily recede before it, and, at length, disappear altogether, when human knowledge has reached its highest ultimate perfection.

But is it a correct account of the fact?
Is it true that the doctrine of Final Causes is less generally admitted, or more dubiously maintained, in regard to those sciences which have already reached their maturity, than in regard to those other sciences which are still comparatively in their infancy?
Or is it true that it has lost instead of gaining ground by the progress of scientific discovery, so as to occupy a narrower space and to hold a more precarious footing, _now_, than it did in the earlier ages of ignorance and superstition?
Did Final Causes disappear from the view of Newton when he discovered the law which regulates the movements of the heavenly bodies?
Did Galen or did Paley discard them when they surveyed the human frame in the light of scientific anatomy?
or Harvey, when, impelled and guided by this doctrine as his governing principle, he discovered the circulation of the blood?
In what departments of Nature, and in what branches of Science, does the Theistic philosopher or the Christian divine find the clearest and strongest proofs of order, adaptation, and adjustment?
Is it not in those very departments of Nature whose laws have been most fully ascertained?
in those very branches of Science which have been most thoroughly matured?
Did we believe Comte and La Place, we should expect to find that the doctrine of Final Causes and the science of Theology could now find no footing in the domain of Astronomy, of Physics, or of Chemistry, since in these departments the phenomena have been reduced, by many successive discoveries, to rigorous general laws; and that they could only survive for a brief time by taking refuge in the yet unconquered territory of Meteorology, Biology, and Social Science.

But is it so?
Examine the Series of Bridgewater Treatises, or any other recent philosophical exposition of the Evidence of Natural Theology, and it will be apparent, on the most cursory review, that in point of fact the arguments and illustrations are derived almost entirely from _the more advanced sciences_; and that, so far from receding or threatening to disappear, Final Causes have only become more prominent and more striking in proportion as inquiring men have succeeded in removing the vail from any department of Nature.
It were easy, indeed, to cull from the records of the past many facts which might seem to give a plausible aspect to the theory of M.Comte.
We might be told of the early history of Astronomy, when the astrologer gazed upon the heavens with a superstitious eye, and spoke of the mystic influence of the planets, and constructed the horoscope for the calculation of nativities and the prediction of future events.

We might be told of the early history of Anatomy, when, from the entrails of birds and animals, the _haruspex_ prognosticated the fate of empires and the fortunes of battle.