SECTION III.

On the other hand, a man must have a singular partiality for final causes, to assert that stone was made for building houses, and that silk-worms are produced in China that we may wear satins in Europe.

He saw that Descartes denied, what Gas- { sendi affirmed, and what Newton demonstrated that motion cannot exist without It would appear that a man must be a vacuum. He conceived the necessity supposed to have lost his senses, before of atoms to serve as constituent parts of he can deny that stomachs are made for invariable species. These are philoso-digestion, eyes to see, and ears to hear. phical ideas. Nothing, however, was more respectable than the morality of genuine Epicureans; it consisted in sequestration from public affairs, which are incompatible with wisdom, and in friendship, without which, life is but a burden. But as to the rest of the philosophy of Epicurus, it appears not to be more admissible than the grooved or tubular matter of Descartes. It is, as it appears to me, wilfully to shut the eyes and the understanding, and to maintain that there is no design in nature; and if there is design, there is an intelligentject, no effect without a cause; all, therecause there exists a God.

Some object to us the irregularities of our globe, the volcanoes, the plains of moving sands, some small mountains swallowed up in the ocean, others raised by earthquakes, &c. But does it follow from the naves of your chariot wheels taking fire, that your chariot was not made expressly for the purpose of conveying you from one place to another?

The chains of mountains which crown both hemispheres, and more than six hundred rivers which flow from the foot of these rocks towards the sea; the various streams that swell these rivers in their cause, after fertilising the fields through which they pass; the innumerable fountains which spring from the same source, which supply necessary refreshment, and growth, and beauty to animal and vegetable life; all this appears no more to result from a fortuitous concourse and an obliquity of atoms, than the retina which receives the rays of light, or the chrystalline humour which refracts it, or the drum of the ear which admits sounds, or the circulation of the blood in our veins, the systole and diastole of the heart, the regulating principle of the machine of life.

But, it is urged, if God has evidently done one thing by design, he has then done all things by design. It is ridicu lous to admit providence in the one case and to deny it in the others. Everything that is done was forseen, was arranged. There is no arrangement without an ob

fore, is equally the result, the produce of a final cause it is therefore, as correct to say that noses were made to bear spectacles, and fingers to be adorned with rings, as to say that the ears were formed to hear sounds, the eyes to receive light.

All that this objection amounts to, in my opinion, is, that everything is the result, nearer or more remote, of a general final cause; that everything is the consequence of eternal laws.

When the effects are invariably the same in all times and places, and when these uniform effects are independent of the beings to which they attach, then there is visibly a final cause.

All animals have eyes and see; all have ears and hear; all have a mouth with which they eat; a stomach, or something similar, by which they digest their food; all have suitable means for expelling the fæces; all have the organs requisite for the continuation of their species; and these natural gifts perform their regular course and process without any application or intermixture of art. Here are final causes clearly established; and to deny a truth so universal would be a perversion of the faculty of reason.

But stones, in all times and places, do not constitute the materials of buildings. All noses do not bear spectacles; all fingers do not carry a ring; all legs are not covered with silk stockings. A silk-worm, therefore, is not made to cover my legs, exactly as your mouth is made for eating, and another part of your person for the "garderobe." There are, therefore, we see, immediate effects produced from final causes, and effects of a very numerous description, which are remote productions from those

causes.

Everything belonging to nature is uniform, immutable, and the immediate work of its author. It is he who has established the laws by which the moon contributes three-fourths to the cause of the flux and reflux of the ocean, and the sun the remaining fourth. It is he who has given a rotatory motion to the sun, in consequence of which that orb communicates its rays of light in the short space of seven minutes and a half to the eyes of men, crocodiles, and cats.

But if, after a course of ages, we started the inventions of shears and spits, to clip the wool of sheep with the one, and with the other to roast in order to eat them, what else can be inferred from such circumstances, but that God formed us in such a manner that, at some time or other, we could not avoid becoming ingenious and carnivorous?

Sheep, undoubtedly, were not made expressly to be roasted and eaten, since many nations abstain from such food with? horror. Mankind are not created essentially to massacre one another, since the bramins, and the respectable primitives called quakers, kill no one. But the clay out of which we are kneaded frequently produces massacres, as it produces calumnies, vanities, persecutions, and impertinences. It is not precisely that the formation of man is the final cause of our madnesses and follies, for a final cause is universal, and invariable in every age and place: but the horrors and absurdities of the human race are not at

all the less included in the eternal order of things. When we thresh our corn, the flail is the final cause of the separation of the grain. Bnt if that flail, while threshing my grain, crushes to death a thousand insects, that occurs not by an express and determinate act of my will, nor, on the other hand, is it by mere chance; the insects were, on this occasion, actually under my flail, and could not but be there.

It is a consequence of the nature of things that a man should be ambitious; that he should enrol and discipline a number of other men; that he should be a conqueror, or that he should be defeated; but it can never be said that the man was created by God to be killed in war.

The organs with which nature has sup-
plied us cannot always be final causes in
action. The eyes which are bestowed for
seeing are not constantly open. Every
sense has its season for repose. There
are some senses that are even made no
use of. An imbecile and wretched fe-
male, for example, shut up in a clois-
ter at the age of fourteen years, mars
one of the final causes of her exist-
ence;
}
but the cause, nevertheless,
equally subsists, and whenever it is free,
it will operate.

FINESSE, FINENESS, &c.
Of the different Significations of the
Word.

FINENESS either in its proper or its figurative sense does not signify either light, slender, fine, or of a rare thin texture; this word expresses something delicate and finished. Light cloth, soft linen, thin lace, or slender galoon, are not always fine.

This word has a relation to the verb to finish, whence come the finishings of art; thus we say, the finishings of Vanderwerff's pencil or of Mieris: we say, a fine horse, fine gold, a fine diamond, &c. A fine horse is opposed to a clumsy one; the fine diamond to a false one;

fine or refined gold to gold mixed with alloy.

licacy to madrigal. It is delicacy which enters into a lover's jealousies, and not finesse.

The praise given to Louis XIV. by Despreaux are not always equally delicate; satires are not always sufficiently ingenious in the way of finesse.

Fineness is generally applied to delicate things and lightness of manufacture. Although we say a fine horse, we seldom say, "the fineness of a horse." We speak of the fineness of hair, lace, or a stuff. When by this word we should express the fault or wrong use of any-ceived from her father the order never to thing, we add the adverb too; as,-This see Achilles more, she cries,— thread is broken, it was too fine; this stuff is too fine for the season.

Fineness or finesse, in a figurative sense, applies to conduct, speech, and works of mind. In conduct, finesse always expresses, as in the arts, something delicate or subtle; it may sometimes exist without ability, but it is very rarely unaccompanied by a little deception; politics admit it, and society reproves it. { Finesse is not exactly subtlety; we draw a person into a snare with finesse ; we escape from it with subtlety. We act with finesse, and we play a subtle trick. Distrust is inspired by an unspairing use of finesse; yet we almost always deceive ourselves if we too generally suspect it.

When Iphigenia, in Racine, has re

Dieux plus doux, vous n'aviez demandé que ma vie!
More gentle gods, 'you' only ask my life!

The true character of this line partakes rather of delicacy than of finesse.

FIRE.

SECTION I.

Is fire anything more than an element which lights, warms, and burns us? Is not light always fire, though fire is not always light? And is not Boerhaave in { the right?

Is not the purest fire extracted from our combustibles, always gross, and partaking of the bodies consumed, and very different from elementary fire?

Finesse, in works of wit, as in conversation, consists in the art of not ex-ture, of which it is the soul? pressing a thought clearly, but leaving it So as to be easily perceived. It is an enigma to which people of sense readily find the solution.

How is fire distributed throughout na

A chancellor one day offering his protection to parliament, the first president turning towards the assembly, said: { "Gentlemen, thank the chancellor; he he has given us more than we demanded of him;"-a very witty reproof.

Finesse, in conversation and writing, differs from delicacy; the first applies equally to piquant and agreeable things, even to blame and praise; and still more to indecencies, over which a veil is drawn, through which we cannot penetrate without a blush. Bold things may be said with finesse.

Delicacy expresses soft and agreeable sentiments and ingenious praise; thus finesse belongs more to epigram, and de

Ignis ubique latet, naturam amplectitur omnem,
Cuncta parit, renovat, dividit, unit, alit.

Why did Newton, in speaking of rays of light, always say,-"De natura radiorum lucis, utrum corpora sint nec nenon disputans;" without examining whether they were bodies or not?

Did he only speak geometrically? In that case, this doubt was useless. It is evident that he doubted of the nature of elementary fire, and doubted with reason.

Is elementary fire a body like others, as earth and water? If it was a body of this kind, would it not gravitate like all other matter? Would it escape from the luminous body in a right line? Would it have an uniform progression? And why does light never move out of a right line when it is unimpeded in its rapid course?

May not elementary fire have properties of matter little known to us, and properties of substance entirely so? May it not be a medium between matter and substances of another kind? And who

would be so too if I could; but there are so many fools and villains, that I dare not: I can only think quietly in my own way at Mount Krapak. Let others think as well as they are allowed to think, whecan say that there are not a million ofther at Salamanca or Bergamo. these substances? I do not say that there are, but I say it is not proved that there may not be.

SECTION II.

Of what is understood by Fire used figuratively.

It was very difficult to believe, about a hundred years ago, that bodies acted upon one another, not only without touch- Fire, particularly in poetry, often siging, and without emission, but at great nifies love, and is employed more eledistances; it is however found to be true,gantly in the plural than in the singular. and is no longer doubted. At present, it is difficult to believe that the rays of the sun are penetrable by each other, but who knows what may happen to prove it? However that may be, I wish, for the novelty of the thing, that this incomprehensible penetrability could be admitted. Light has something so divine, that we should endeavour to make it a step to the discovery of substances still more pure.

Corneille often says un beau feu for a virtuous and noble love. A man has fire in his conversation: that does not mean that he has brilliant and enlightened ideas, but lively expressions animated by action.

Fire in writing does not necessarily imply lightness and beauty, but vivacity, multiplied figures, and spontaneous ideas. Fire is a merit in speech and writing only when it is well managed.

a

FIRMNESS.

Come to my aid, Empedocles and De- It is said that poets are animated with mocritus; come and admire the wonders divine fire when they are sublime; of electricity; see if the sparks which genius cannot exist without fire, but fire traverse a thousand bodies in the twink-may be possessed without genius. ling of an eye, are of ordinary matter; judge if elementary fire does not contract the heart, and communicate that warmth which gives life! Judge if this element is not the source of all sensation, and if sensation is not the origin of thought; though ignorant and insolent pedants have condemned the proposition, as one which should be persecuted.

Tell me, if the Supreme Being, who presides over all nature, cannot for ever preserve these elementary atoms which he has so rarely endowed? Igneus est ollis vigor et cœlestis origo."

FIRMNESS comes from firm, and has a different signification from solidity and hardness; a squeezed cloth, a beaten negro, have firmness without being hard or solid.

It must always be remembered, that modifications of the soul can only be expressed by physical images: we say firmness of soul, and of mind, which does not signify that they are harder or more solid than usual.

Firmness is the exercise of mental en-courage; it means a decided resolution; while obstinacy, on the contrary, signifies blindness.

The celebrated Le Cat calls this vivifying fluid-"An amphibious being, dowed by its author with a superior refinement which links it to immaterial beings, and thereby ennobles and elevates it into that medium nature which we recognise, and which is the source of all its properties."

You are of the opinion of Le Cat? I

Those who praise the firmness of Tacitus are not so much in the wrong as P. Bouhours pretends; it is an accidental ill-chosen term, which expresses energy and strength of thought and of style. It