Page:Ferrier Works vol 2 1888 LECTURES IN GREEK PHILOSOPHY.pdf/233

178 they were the work of a cause which was in itself wise and good. He led philosophers to combine the notion of intelligence with the notion of power or efficiency, which heretofore had been the sole attribute assigned to the moving principle of the universe. Intelligence, as well as omnipotence, was set forth in the scheme of Anaxagoras as an attribute of the first great cause.

15. The recognition of ends or final causes in nature is equivalent to the admission of an intelligent principle as the orderer and director of the universe. It would lead me away from the scope of the present discussion were I to go into any illustrations or details of the argument from design, but I may say a few words in explanation of the principle on which it proceeds. In arguing from ends or final causes, in other words, from design, we necessarily make the idea of a thing precede its realisation; we place thought before action, and thus we necessarily lay down thought, intelligence, or reason as the first, the beginning. If thought or intelligence be the first, the beginning, by what term shall we designate the ultimate or the end? The most expressive and comprehensive term by which this can be designated, is "the good." This term for ends in general is as old as the days of Anaxagoras. Let us now attend to these two conceptions, intelligence or thought considered as the beginning, and the good considered as the end. And let us suppose an illustrative case drawn from human nature: it may, perhaps, assist us