Moreover, the Particular Ends of individual things it is lawful and fitting to search out, 1. in Scripture, where Moses sets forth Particular Ends of this sort, relating the appointment of God concerning the Firmament, Genesis 1:6; concerning the heavenly Luminaries, verse 14; concerning animals and things arising from the earth, verses 28-30; things similar to these are also read elsewhere. And, 2. in Nature, in which Experience teaches us the End to which most things are designed, through the Use that they each furnish. Thus, I say, the Particular Ends of created things it is lawful and fitting to search out, in order to more completely realize the Excellence of the Work and the Glory of God: hence the Most Distinguished NIEUWENTYT, in the preface to Cosmotheoriæ, judges, that he is not able to depict Scopology[1] as an ignoble part of Philosophy. The propriety and utility of this Scopology is also confirmed at greater length by REIMARUS, over de voornaamste Waarheden van den natuurlichen Godtsdienst, Essay 3, § 1-6, pages 125-147, 157-162, Essay 4, § 5-19, pages 211-288. If only be removed, α. excessive Curiosity, which is willing to relinquish nothing not evident, and thus attempts simply to satisfy the desire to know, more than to incite man to the celebration of the divine praises in this life: and, β. the immodest assertion of a thing not sufficiently evident. Descartes is at fault, because he wished the consideration of Ends to be excluded from the treatment of natural things; see BUDDEUS, de Atheismo et Superstitione, chapter I, § 25, and LULOFS, Annotationibus upon the same (61), pages 89-91. How an argument for the Existence of the Divine Being is able to be formed from the Ends of things, LULOFS indictes in the same place, chapter V, § 7 (212), pages 295, 296: add LODEWIJK MEYER, Dissertatione, qua, ex Attributis Rerum hoc Universum constituentium Communibus, demonstratur, Res has non Necessario existere, sed ab Ente Necessario Creatas esse, § 25, pages 35-40, in which Teleology is also commended very highly.
[1] That is, the study of Ends or Goals.