Introductory Remarks on the Doctrine of Final Causes.

This Edition, with the exception of a few verbal corrections too insignificant to require any formal notice, is a reprint from the text of a Discourse–first published in 1833. Several additions have, however, been made to the Notes of the Appendix, and their arrangement has been changed. Note (D) on the Nebular Hypothesis, and note (E) in reply to some objections which had been taken to the religious principles of the Discourse, are entirely new. In note (G) I have added a translation of the Greek extract from Xenophon's Memorabilia: and about two pages have been added to note (H) (note (E) of the former editions), on Paley's Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy. I do not wish to change one sentence of what I had written on the Utilitarian Theory of Morals; because my opinions on that subject are unchanged, and I think it not expedient to write upon it at greater length.

As the Discourse and the Notes of the Appendix were written at different times, after long interruptions, and to meet specific objections, I have been led into several repetitions which might be avoided in a more formal treatise: but the very repetitions are not perhaps without their use.