We may find a further assertion of this view of the proper use of final causes in philosophy, by referring to the works of one of the greatest of our philosophers, and one of the most pious of our writers, Boyle, who has an Essay on this subject. “I am by all means,” says he, “for encouraging the contemplation of the celestial part of the world, and the shining globes that adorn it, and especially the sun and moon, in order to raise our admiration of the stupendous power and wisdom of him who was able to frame such immense bodies; and notwithstanding their vast bulk and scarce conceivable rapidity, keep them for so many ages constant both to the lines and degrees of their motion, without interfering with one another. And doubtless we ought to return thanks and praises to the divine goodness for having so placed the sun and moon, and determined the former, or else the earth, to move in particular lines for the good of men and other animals; and how disadvantageous it would have been to the inhabitants of the earth if the luminaries had moved after a different manner. I dare not, however, affirm that the sun, moon, and other celestial bodies were made solely for the use of man: _much less presume to prove one system of the world to be true and another false; because the former is better fitted to the convenience of mankind, or the other less suited, or perhaps altogether useless to that end_.” This passage exhibits, we conceive, that combination of feelings which ought to mark the character of the religious natural philosopher; an earnest piety ready to draw nutriment from the contemplation of established physical truths; joined with a philosophical caution, which is not seduced by the anticipation of such contemplations, to pervert the strict course of physical inquiry. It is precisely through this philosophical care and scrupulousness that our views of final causes acquire their force and value as aids to religion. The object of such views is not to lead us to physical truth, but to connect such truth, obtained by its proper processes and methods, with our views of God, the master of the universe, through those laws and relations which are thus placed beyond dispute.