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CHAPTER III.

Mutual Adaptation in the Laws of Nature.

To ascertain such laws of nature as we have been describing, is the peculiar business 0f science. It is only with regard to a very small portion 0f the appearances 0f the universe, that science, in any strict application of the term, exists. In very few departments of research have men been able to trace a multitude of known facts to causes which appear to be the ultimate material causes, or to discern the laws which seem to be the most gene- ral laws. Yet, in one or two instances, they have done this, or something approaching to this ; and most especially in the instance of that part of nature, which it is the object of this treatise more peculiarly to consider.

The apparent motions of the sun, moon, and stars have been more completely reduced to their

causes and laws than any other class of pheno- mena. Astronomy, the science which treats of

these, is already a Wonderful example of the de- gree of such knowledge which man may attain. The forms of its most important laws may be con- ceived to be certainly known; and hundreds of observers in all parts of the world are daily em- ployed in determining, with additional accuracy,