man to touch; that even his most strenuous efforts attempt in vain.

It remains, then, to inquire, if man can reasonably flatter himself with
obtaining a perfect knowledge of the power of nature; of the properties
of the beings she contains; of the effects which may result from their
various combinations? Do we know why the magnet attracts iron? Are we
better acquainted with the cause of polar attraction? Are we in a
condition to explain the phenomena of light, electricity, elasticity? Do
we understand the mechanism by which that modification of our brain,
which we tall volition, puts our arm or our legs into motion? Can we
render to ourselves an account of the manner in which our eyes behold
objects, in which our ears receive sounds, in which our mind conceives
ideas? All we know upon these subjects is, that they are so. If then we
are incapable of accounting for the most ordinary phenomena, which
nature daily exhibits to us, by what chain of reasoning do we refuse to
her the power of producing other effects equally incomprehensible to us?
Shall we be more instructed, when every time we behold an effect of
which we are not in a capacity to develope the cause, we may idly say,
this effect is produced by the power, by the will of God? Undoubtedly it
is the great _Cause of causes_ must have produced every thing; but is it
not lessening the true dignity of the Divinity, to introduce him as
interfering in every operation of nature; nay, in every action of so
insignificant a creature as man? As a mere agent executing his own
eternal, immutable laws; when experience, when reflection, when the
evidence of all we contemplate, warrants the idea, that this ineffable
being has rendered nature competent to every effect, by giving her those
irrevocable laws, that eternal, unchangeable system, according to which
all the beings she contains must eternally act? Is it not more worthy
the exalted mind of the GREAT PARENT OF PARENTS, _ens entium_, more
consistent with truth, to suppose that his wisdom in giving these