all possible health, perfect health. The last end, then, is to be
desired as a thing to possess without end or measure, fully and
without defect.

4. We have then these facts to philosophise on: that all men desire
perfect happiness: that this desire is natural, springing from the
rational soul which sets man above the brute: that on earth man may
attain to contentment, and to some happiness, but not to perfect
happiness: that consequently nature has planted in man a desire for
which on earth she has provided no adequate satisfaction.

5. If the course of events were fitful and wayward, so that effects
started up without causes, and like causes under like conditions
produced unlike effects, and anything might come of anything, there
would be no such thing as that which we call _nature_. When we speak
of nature, we imply a regular and definite flow of tendencies, this
thing springing from that and leading to that other; nothing from
nothing, and nothing leading nowhere; no random, aimless proceedings;
but definite results led up to by a regular succession of steps, and
surely ensuing unless something occurs on the way to thwart the
process. How this is reconciled with Creation and Freewill, it is not
our province to enquire: suffice it to say that a _natural_ agent is
opposed to a _free_ one, and creation is the starting-point of nature.
But to return. Everywhere we say, "this is for that," wherever there
appears an end and consummation to which the process leads, provided
it go on unimpeded. Now every event that happens is a part of some
process or other. Every act is part of a tendency. There are no loose
facts in nature, no things that happen, or are, otherwise than in
consequence of something that has happened, or been, before, and in
view of something else that is to happen, or be, hereafter. The