For there all the ends showing themselves in nature, which are often only made up by us, serve only to make it extremely convenient for us in our search for causes, so that in stead of seeking them in the universal laws of the mechanism of matter, we appeal right away to the inscrutable decree of the highest wisdom, and regard the toil of reason as completed when in fact the use of rea son has been completely dispensed with a use which finds its guiding thread nowhere unless it is provided to us by the order of nature and the series of alterations according to their internal and more general laws.