it is in vain to look for
anything higher in the origin of the earth. The result, therefore, of
this physical inquiry is, that we find no vestige of a beginning,--no
prospect of an end."[43]

Yet another influence worked strongly upon Hutton. Like most
philosophers of his age, he coquetted with those final causes which have
been named barren virgins, but which might be more fitly termed the
_hetairae_ of philosophy, so constantly have they led men astray. The
final cause of the existence of the world is, for Hutton, the production
of life and intelligence.

"We have now considered the globe of this earth as a machine,
constructed upon chemical as well as mechanical principles, by which its
different parts are all adapted, in form, in quality, and in quantity,
to a certain end; an end attained with certainty or success; and an end
from which we may perceive wisdom, in contemplating the means employed.

"But is this world to be considered thus merely as a machine, to last no
longer than its parts retain their present position, their proper forms
and qualities? Or may it not be also considered as an organized body?
such as has a constitution in which the necessary decay of the machine
is naturally repaired, in the exertion of those productive powers by
which it had been formed.

"This is the view in which we are now to examine the globe; to see if
there be, in the constitution of this world, a reproductive operation,
by which a ruined constitution may be again repaired, and a duration or
stability thus procured to the machine, considered as a world sustaining
plants and animals."[44]

Kirwan, and the other Philistines of the day, accused Hutton of
declaring that his theory implied that the world never had a beginning,
and never differed in condition from its present state. Nothing could be
more grossly unjust, as he expressly guards himself against any such
conclusion in the following terms:--

"But in thus tracing back the natural operations which have succeeded
each other, and mark to us the course of time past, we come to a period
in which we cannot see any farther. This, however, is not the beginning
of the operations which proceed in time and according to the wise
economy of this world; nor is it the establishing of that which, in the
course of time, had no beginning; it is only the limit of our
retrospective view of those operations which have come to pass in time,
and have been conducted by supreme intellige