The construction of the spine, another of Howe's illustrations, is thus exemplified:- "The spine or back-bone is a chain of joints of very wonderful construction. Various, difficult, and almost inconsistent offices were to be executed by the same instrument. It was to be firm, yet flexible: now I know of no chain made by art, which is both these; for by firmness I mean, not only strength, but stability; firm, to support the erect position of the body; flexible, to allow of the bending of the trunk in all degrees of curvature. It was farther, also, which is another and quite a distinct purpose from the rest, to become a pipe or conduit for the safe conveyance from the brain of the most important fluid of the animal frame, that, namely, upon which all voluntary motion depends, the spinal marrow; a substance, not only of the first necessity to action if not to life; but of a nature so delicate and tender, so susceptible, and so impatient of injury, as that any unusual pressure upon it, or any considerable obstruction of its course, is followed by paralysis or death. Now, the spine was not only to furnish the main trunk for the passage of the medullary substance from the brain, but to give out, in the course of its progress, small pipes therefrom, which being afterward indefinitely subdivided, might, under the name of nerves, distribute this exquisite supply to every part of the body. The same spine was also to serve another use not less wanted than the preceding, viz. to afford a fulcrum, stay, or basis (or more properly speaking, a series of these), for the insertion of the muscles which are spread over the trunk of the body, in which trunk there are not, as in the limbs, cylindrical bones, to which they can be fastened. And likewise, which is a similar use, to furnish a support for the ends of the ribs to rest upon. "Bespeak of a workman a piece of mechanism which shall comprise all these purposes, and let him set about to contrive it; let him try his skill upon it; let him feel the difficulty of accomplishing the task, before he be told how the same thing is effected in the animal frame. Nothing will enable him to judge so well of the wisdom which has been employed; nothing will dispose him to think of it so truly. First, for the firmness, yet flexibility, of the spine: it is composed of a great number of bones (in the human subject of twentyfour), joined to one another, and compacted together by broad bases. The breadth of the bases upon which the parts severally rest, and the closeness of the junction, give to the chain its firmness and stability; the number of parts, and consequent frequency of joints, its flexibility. Which flexibility we may also observe, varies in different parts of the chain; is least in the back, where strength more than flexure is wanted; greater in the loins, which it was necessary should be more supple than the back; and the greatest of all in the neck, for the free motion of the head. Then, secondly, in order to afford a passage for the descent of the medullary substance, each of these bones is bored through in the middle in such a manner, as that, when put together, the hole in one bone falls into a line, and corresponds with the hales in the two bones contiguous to it. By which means, the perforated pieces, when joined, form an entire, close, uninterrupted channel; at least, while the spine is upright and at rest. But, as a settled posture is inconsistent with its use, a great difficulty still remained, which was to prevent the vertebræ shifting upon one another, so as to break the line of the canal as often as the body moves or twists; or the joints, gaping externally, whenever the body is bent forward, and the spine thereupon made to take the form of a bow. These dangers, which are mechanical, are mechanically provided against. The vertebræ, by means of their processes and projections, and of the articulations which some of these form with one another at their extremities, are so locked in and confined, as to maintain in what are called the bodies or broad surfaces of the bones, the relative position nearly unaltered; and to throw the change of the pressure produced by flexion almost entirely upon the intervening cartilages, the springiness and yielding nature of whose substance admits of all the motion which is necessary to be performed upon them, without any chasm being produced by a separation of the parts. I say, of all the motion which is necessary; for although we bend our backs to every degree almost of inclination, the motion of each vertebra is very small; such is the advantage which we receive from the chain being composed of so many links, the spine of so many bones. Had it consisted of three or four bones only, in bending the body, the spinal marrow must have been bruised at every angle. The reader need not be told, that these intervening cartilages are gristles; and he may see them in perfection in a loin of veal. Their form also favours the same intention. They are thicker before than behind; so that, when we stoop forward, the compressible substance of the cartilage, yielding in its thicker and anterior part to the force which squeezes it, brings the surfaces of the adjoining vertebræ nearer to the being parallel with one another than they were before, instead of increasing the inclination of their planes, which must have occasioned a fissure or opening between them. Thirdly, for the medullary canal giving out in its course, and in a convenient order, a supply of nerves to different parts of the body, notches are made in the upper and lower edge of every vertebra; two on each edge; equidistant on each side from the middle line of the back. When the vertebræ are put together, these notches, exactly fitting, form small holes, through which the nerves, at each articulation, issue out in pairs, in order to send their branches to every part of the body, and with an equal bounty to both sides of the body. The fourth purpose assigned to the same instrument is the insertion of the bases of the muscles, and the support of the ends of the ribs; and for this fourth purpose, especially the former part of it, a figure, specifically suited to the design, and unnecessary for the other purposes, is given to the constituent bones. While they are plain, and round, and smooth towards the front, where any roughness or projection might have wounded the adjacent viscera, they run out, behind, and on each side, into long processes, to which processes the muscles necessary to the motions of the trunk are fixed; and fixed with such art, that, while the vertebræ supply a basis for the muscles, the muscles help to keep these bones in their position, or b heir tendons to tie them together. "nat most important, however, and general property, viz. the strength of the compages, and the security against luxation, was to be still more specially consulted; for where so many joints were concerned, and where, in every one, derangement would have been fatal, it became a subject of studious precaution. For this purpose, the vertebræ are articulated, that is, the movcable joints between them are formed, by means of those projections of their substance, which we have mentioned under the name of processes; and these so lock in with, and overwrap one another, as to secure the body of the vertebræ, not only from accidentally slipping, but even from being pushed out of its place by any violence short of that which would break the bone." Instances of design and wonderful contrivance are as numerous as there are organized bodies in nature, and as there are relations between bodies which are not organized. The subject is, therefore, inexhaustible. The cases stated are sufficient for the illustration of this species of argument for the existence of an intelligent First Cause. Many others are given with great force and interest in the Natural Theology of Paley, from which the above quotations have been made; but his chapter on the personality of the Deity contains applications of the argument from design, too important to be overlooked. The same course of reasoning may be traced in many other writers, but by none has it been expressed with so much clearness and felicity. "Contrivance, if established, appears to me to prove every thing which we wish to prove. Among other things it proves the personality of the Deity, as distinguished from what is sometimes called nature, sometimes called a principle; which terms, in the mouths of those who use them philosophically, seem to be intended to admit and to express an efficacy, but to exclude and to deny a personal agent. Now, that which can contrive, which can design, must be a person. These capacities constitute personality, for they imply consciousness and thought. They require that which can perceive an end or purpose; as well as the power of providing means, and of directing them to their end. They require a centre in which perceptions unite, and from which volitions flow; which is mind. The acts of a mind prove the existence of a mind; and in whatever a mind resides, is a person. "Of this we are certain, that whatever the Deity be, neither the universe, nor any part of it which we see, can be he. The universe itself is merely a collective name: its parts are all which are real, or which are things. Now, inert matter is out of the question; and organized substances include marks of contrivance. But whatever includes marks of contrivance, whatever, in its constitution, testifies design, necessarily carries us to something beyond itself, to some other being, to a designer prior to, and out of, itself. No animal, for instance, can have contrived its own limbs and senses; can have been the author to itself of the design with which they were constructed. That supposition involves all the absurdity of self-creation, i. e. of acting without existing. Nothing can be God which is ordered by a wisdom and a will which itself is void of; which is indebted for any of its properties to contrivance ab extra. The not having that in his nature which requires the exertion of another prior being (which property is sometimes called self-sufficiency, and sometimes self-comprehension) appertains to the Deity, as his essential distinction, and removes his nature from that of all things which we see. Which consideration contains the answer to a question that has sometimes been asked, namely, Why, since something or other must have existed from eternity, may not the present universe be that something? The contrivance perceived in it proves that to be impossible. Nothing contrived can, in a strict and proper sense, be eternal, forasmuch as the contriver must have existed before the contrivance. "We have already noticed, and we must here notice again, the misapplication of the term 'law,' and the mistake concerning the idea which that term expresses in physics, whenever such idea is made to take the place of power, and still more of an intelligent power, and, as such, to be assigned for the cause of any thing, or of any property of any thing, that exists. This is what we are secretly apt to do when we speak of organized bodies (plants, for instance, or animals) owing their production, their form, their growth, their qualities, their beauty, their use, to any law or laws of nature; and when we are contented to sit down with that answer to our inquiries concerning them. I say once more, that it is a perversion of language to assign any law, as the efficient operative cause of any thing. A law presupposes an agent, for it is only the mode according to which an agent proceeds; it implies a power, for it is the order according to which that power acts. Without this agent, without this power, which are both distinct from itself, the law' does nothing; is nothing. "What has been said concerning law,' hold true of mechanism. Mechanism is not itself power. Mechanism without power can do nothing. Let a watch be contrived and constructed ever so ingeniously; be its parts ever so many, ever so complicated, ever so finely wrought or artificially put together, it cannot go without a weight or spring, i. e. without a force independent of, and ulterior to, its mechanism. The spring acting at the centre, will produce different motions and different results, according to the variety of the intermediate mechanism. One and the self-same spring, acting in one and the same manner, viz. by simply expanding itself, may be the cause of a hundred different and all useful movements, if a hundred different and well-devised sets of wheels be placed between it and the final effect, e. g. may point out the hour of the day, the day of the month, the age of the moon, the position of the planets, the cycle of the years, and many other serviceable notices; and these movements may fulfil their purposes with more or less perfection, according as the mechanism is better or worse contrived, or better or worse executed, or in a better or worse state of repair; but in all cases, it is necessary that the spring act at the centre. The course of our reasoning upon such a subject would be this. By inspecting the watch, even when standing still, we get a proof of contrivance, and of a contriving mind having been employed about it. In the form and obvious relation of its parts we see enough to convince us of this. If we pull the works in pieces, for the purpose of a closer examination, we are still more fully convinced. But when we see the watch going, we see proof of another point, viz. that there is a power somewhere, and somehow or other, applied to it; a power in action; that there is more in the subject than the mere wheels of the machine; that there is a secret spring or a gravitating plummet; in a word, that there is force and energy as well as mechanism. "So, then, the watch in motion establishes to the observer two conclusions: one, that thought, contrivance, and design have been employed in the forming, proportioning, and arranging of its parts; and that whoever or wherever he be, or were, such a contriver there is, or was: the other, that force or power, distinct from mechanism, is, at this present time, acting upon it. If I saw a hand-mill even at rest, I should see contrivance; but if I saw it grinding, I should be assured that a hand was at the windlass, though in another room. It is the same in nature. In the works of nature we trace mechanism; and this alone proves contrivance; but living, active, moving, productive nature proves also the exertion of a power at the centre; for wherever the power resides, may be denominated the centre. "The intervention and disposition of what are called second causes' fall under the same observation. This disposition is or is not mechanism, according as we can or cannot trace it by our senses, and means of examination. That is all the difference there is; and it is a difference which respects our faculties, not the things themselves. Now where the order of second causes is mechanical, what is here said of mechanism strictly applies to it. But it would be always mechanism (natural chemistry, for instance, would be mechanism), if our senses were acute enough to descry it Neither mechanism, therefore, in the works of nature, nor the intervention of what are called second causes (for I think that they are the same thing), excuses the necessity of an agent distinct from both, "If, in tracing these causes, it be said, that we find certain general properties of matter, which have nothing in them that bespeaks intelligence, I answer, that still, the managing of these properties, the pointing and directing them to the uses which we see made of them, demands intelligence in the highest degree For example, suppose animal secretions to be elective attractions, and that such and such attractions universally belong to such and such substances; in all which there is no intellect concerned; still the choice and collocation of these substances, the fixing upon right substances and disposing them in right places, must be an act of intelligence. What mischief would follow, were there a single transposition of the secretory or gans; a single mistake in arranging the glands which compose them! "There may be many second causes, and many courses of second causes, one behind another, between what we observe of nature and the Deity; but there must be intelligence somewhere; there must be more in nature than what we see; and among the things unseen, there must be an intelligent, designing author, The philosopher beholds with astonishment the production of things around him. Unconscious particles of matter take their stations, and severally range themselves in an order, so as to become collectively plants or animals, i. e. organized bodies, with parts bearing strict and evident relation to one another, and to the utility of the whole: and it should seem that these particles could not move in any other way than as they do; for they testify not the smallest sign of choice, or liberty, or discretion. There may be particular intelligent beings guiding these motions in each case: or they may be the result of trains of mechanical dispositions, fixed beforehand by an intelligent appointment, and kept in action by a power at the centre. But, in either case, there must be intelligence." The above arguments, as they irresistibly confirm the Scripture doctrine of the existence of an intelligent First Cause, expose the extreme folly and absurdity of Atheism, The first of the leading theories which it has assumed, is the eternity of matter. When this means the eternity of the world in its present form and constitution, it is contradicted by the changes which are actually and every moment taking place in it; and, as above argued, by the contrivance which it every where presents, and which, it has been proved, necessarily supposes that designing intelligence we call God. When it means the eternity of unorganized matter only, the subject which has received those various forins, and orderly arrangements, which imply contrivance and final causes, it leaves untouched the question of an intelligent cause, the author of the forms with which it has been impressed. A creative cause may, and must, nevertheless, exist; and this was the opinion of many of the ancient theistical philosophers, who ascribed eternity both to God and to matter; and considered creation, not as the bringing of something out of nothing, but as the framing of what actually existed without order and without end. But though this tenet was held, in conjunction with a belief in the Deity, by many who had not the light of the Scripture revelation, yet its manifest tendency is to Atheism, because it supposes the impossibility of creation in the absolute sense; and thus produces limited notions of God, from which the transition to an entire denial of him is an easy step. In modern times, therefore, the opinion of the eternity of matter has been held by few but absolute Atheists. What seems to have led to the notion of a pre-existent and eternal matter out of which the world was formed, was the supposed impossibility of a creation from nothing, according to the maxim, "ex nihilo nihil fit." The philosophy was however bad, because as no contradiction was implied in thus ascribing to God the power to create out of nothing, it was a matter of choice, whether to allow what was merely not comprehensible by man, or to put limitations without reason to the power of God. Thus Cudworth: "Because it is undeniably certain, concerning ourselves, and all imperfect beings, that none of these can create any new substance, men are apt to measure all things by their own scantling, and to suppose it universally impossible for any power whatever thus to create. But since it is certain, that imperfect beings can themselves produce some things out of nothing pre-existing, as new cogitations, new local motion, and new modifications of things corporeal, it is surely reasonable to think that an absolutely perfect being can do something more, i. e. create new substances, or give them their whole being. And it may well be thought as easy for God or an Omnipotent Being, to make a whole world, matter and all, ε 8K Orтwv, as it is for us to create a thought or to move a finger, or for the sun to send out rays, or a candle light, or lastly, for an opaque body to produce an image of itself in a glass or water, or to project a shadow: all these imperfect things being but the energies, rays, images, or shadows of the Deity. For a substance to be made out of nothing by God, or a Being infinitely perfect, is not for it to be made out of nothing in the impossible sense, because it comes from him who is all. Nor can it be said to be impossible for any thing whatever to be made by that which hath not only infinitely greater perfection, but also infinite active power. It is indeed true, that infinite power itself cannot do things in their own nature impossible; and, therefore, those who deny creation ought to prove, that it is absolutely impossible for a substance, though not for an accident or modification, to be brought from non-existence into being. But nothing is in itself impossible which does not imply a contradiction: and though it be a contradiction for a thing to be and not to be at the same time, there is surely no contradiction in conceiving an imperfect being which before was not, afterward to be." It is not necessary to refer to the usual metaphysical arguments to show the non-eternity of matter, by proving that its existence must be necessary if it be eternal; and, if necessary, that it must be infinite, &c. They are not of much value. Every man bears in himself the proof of a creation out of nothing, so that the objection from the impossibility of the thing is at once removed. "That sensation, intelligence, consciousness, and volition are not the result of any modifications of figure and motion, is a truth as evident as that consciousness is not swift, nor volition square. If then these be the powers or properties of a being distinct from matter, which we think capable of the completest proof, every man who does not believe that his mind has existed and been conscious from eternity, must be convinced that the power of creation has been exerted on himself. If it be denied that there is any immaterial substance in man, still it must be confessed, that, as matter is not essentially conscious, and cannot be made so by any particular organization, there is some real thing or entity, call it what you please, which has either existed and been conscious from eternity, or been in time brought from non-entity into existence by an exertion of infinite power." fest. If it attributes the various arrangements of "I much doubt, whether the new schemes have advanced any thing upon the old, or done more than changed the terms of the nomenclature. For instance, I could never see the difference between the antiquated system of atoms and Buffon's organic molecules. This philosopher, having made a planet by knocking off from the sun a piece of melted glass, in consequence of the stroke of a comet; and having set it in motion by the same stroke, both round its own axis and the sun, finds his next difficulty to be, how to bring plants and animals upon it. In order to solve this difficulty, we are to suppose the universe replenished with par ticles endowed with life, but without organization or senses of their own; and endowed also with a tendency to marshal themselves into organized forms. The concourse of these particles, by virtue of this tendency, but without intelligence, will, or direction (for I do not find that any of these qualities are ascribed to them), has produced the living forms which we now see. 66 Very few of the conjectures, which philosophers hazard upon these subjects, have more of pretension in them, than the challenging you to show the direct impossibility of the hypothesis. In the present example there seemed to be a positive objection to the whole scheme upon the very face of it; which was, that if the case were as here represented, new combinations ought to be perpetually taking place; new plants and animals, or organized bodies which were neither, ought to be starting up before our eyes every day. For this, however, our philosopher has an answer.While so many forms of plants and animals are already in existence, and, consequently, so many internal moulds,' as he calls them, are prepared and at hand, the organic particles run into these moulds, and are employed in supplying an accession of substance to them, as well for their growth as for their propagation. By which means things keep their ancient course. But, says the same philosopher, should any general loss or destruction of the present constitution of organized bodies take place, the particles, for want of moulds' into which they might enter, would run into different combinations, and replenish the waste with new species of organized substances. "Is there any history to countenance this notion? Is it known, that any destruction has been so repaired? any desert thus repeopled? "But these wonder-working instruments, these 'internal moulds,' what are they after all? what, when examined, but a name without signification? unintelligible, if not self-contradictory; at the best, differing in nothing from the 'essential forms' of the Greek philosophy? One short sentence of Buffon's works exhibits his scheme as follows: "When this nutritious and prolific matter, which is diffused throughout all nature, passes through the internal mould of an animal or vegetable, and finds a proper matrix or receptacle, it gives rise to an animal or vegetable of the same species.' Does any reader annex a meaning to the expression 'internal mould,' in this sentence? Ought it then to be said, that though we have little notion of an internal mould, we have not much more of a designing mind? The very contrary of this assertion is the truth. When we speak of an artificer or an architect, we talk of what is comprehensible to our understanding, and familiar to our experience. We use no other terms, than what refer us for their meaning to our consciousness and obOn these grounds the absurdity of Atheism is mani-servation: what express the constant objects of both; The former no sober person will contend for, and the latter therefore must be admitted. signer must have been a person. That person is whereas, names like that we have mentioned, refer us to nothing; excite no idea; convey a sound to the ear, but I think do no more. "Another system, which has Well has it been said, that Atheism is, in all its theolately been brought forward, and with much ingenuity, ries, a credulity of the grossest kind, equally degrading is that of appetencies. The principle, and the short ac- to the understanding and to the heart: for what reflectcount of the theory, is this: Pieces of soft, ductile ing and honest mind can for a moment put these theomatter, being endued with propensities or appetencies ries into competition with that revealed in the Scripfor particular actions, would, by continual endeavours, tures, at once so sublime and so convincing; and which carried on through a long series of generations, work instead of shunning, like those just mentioned, an apthemselves gradually into suitable forms; and at length peal to facts, bids us look to the heavens and to the earth; acquire, though perhaps by obscure and almost imper- assemble the aggregate of beings, great and small; and ceptible improvements, an organization fitted to the ac- examine their structure, and mark their relations, in tion which their respective propensities led them to ex-proof that there must exist an All-wise, and an Alert.-A piece of animated matter, for example, that was mighty Creator? endued with a propensity to fly, though ever so shapeless, though no other we will suppose than a round ball, to begin with, would, in a course of ages, if not in a million of years, perhaps in a hundred million of years (for our theorists, having eternity to dispose of, are never sparing in time), acquire wings. The same tendency to locomotion in an aquatic animal, or rather in an animated lump which might happen to be surrounded by water, would end in the production of fins: in a living substance, confined to the solid earth, would put out legs and feet; or, if it took a different turn, would break the body, into ringlets and conclude by crawling upon the ground. "The scheme under consideration is open to the same objection with other conjectures of a similar tendency, viz. a total defect of evidence. No changes, like those which the theory requires, have ever been observed. All the changes in Ovid's Metamorphoses might have been effected by these appetencies, if the theory were true: yet not an example, nor the pretence of an example, is offered of a single change being known to have taken place. "The solution, when applied to the works of nature generally, is contradicted by many of the phenomena, and totally inadequate to others. The ligaments or strictures, by which the tendons are tied down at the angles of the joints, could by no possibility be formed by the motion or exercise of the tendons themselves; by any appetency exciting these parts into action: or by any tendency arising therefrom. The tendency is all the other way; the conatus in constant opposition to them. Length of time does not help the case at all, but the reverse. The valves, also, in the blood-vessels could never be formed in the manner which our theorist proposes. The blood, in its right and natural course has no tendency to form them. When obstructed or refluent, it has the contrary. These parts could not grow out of their use, though they had eternity to grow in. "The senses of animals appear to me altogether incapable of receiving the explanation of their origin which this theory affords. Including under the word 'sense' the organ and the perception, we have no account of either. How will our philosopher get at vision or make an eye? How should the blind animal affect sight, of which blind animals, we know, have neither conception nor desire? Affecting it, by what operation of its will, by what endeavour to see, could it so determine the fluids of its body, as to inchoate the formation of an eye? or suppose the eye formed, would the perception follow? The same of the other senses. And this objection holds its force, ascribe what you will to the hand of time, to the power of habit, to changes too slow to be observed by man, or brought within any comparison which he is able to make of past things with the present: concede what you please to these arbitrary and unattested suppositions, how will they help Here is no inception. No laws, no course, no powers of nature which prevail at present, nor any analogous to these, could give commencement to a new sense. And it is in vain to inquire, how that might proceed which could never begin. you? "In the last place, What do these appetencies mean when applied to plants? I am not able to give a signification to the term, which can be transferred from animals to plants; or which is common to both. Yet a no less successful organization is found in plants, than what obtains in animals. A solution is wanted for one as well as the other. Such is the evidence which the doctrine of a Deity receives from experience, observation, and a rational induction, à posteriori. The argument thus stated has an overwhelming force, and certainly needs no other, though attempts have been made to obtain proof a priori, and thus to meet and rout the forces of the enemy in both directions. No instance is, however, I believe, on record, of an atheistic conversion having been produced by this process, and it may be ranked among the over-zealous attempts of the advocates of truth. It is well intentioned, but unsatisfactory, and so far as on the one hand it has led to a neglect of the more convincing, and powerful course of argument drawn from "the things which do appear ;" and, on the other, has encouraged a dependence upon a mode of investigation, to which the human mind is inadequate, which in many instances is an utter mental delusion, and which scarcely two minds will conduct in the same manner; it has probably been mischievous in its effects, by inducing a skepticism not arising out of the nature of the case, but from the imperfect and unsatisfactory investigations of the human understanding, pushed beyond the limit of its powers. In most instances it is a sword which cuts two ways; and the mere imaginary assumptions of those who think they have found out a new way to demonstrate truth, have in many instances either done disservice to it by absurdity, or yielded principles which unbelievers have connected with the most injurious conclusions. We need only instance the doctrine of the necessary existence of the Deity, when reasoned à priori. Some acute infidels have thanked those f the discovery who intended nothing so little as to encourage error; and have argued from that notion, that the Supreme Being cannot be a free agent, and have thus set the first principles of religion at variance with the Scriptures. The fact seems to be, that though, when once the existence of a first and intelligent cause is established, some of his attributes are capable of proof à priori (how much that proof is worth, is another question), yet that his existence itself admits of no such demonstration, and that in the nature of the thing it is impossible. The reason of this is drawn from the very nature of an argument à priori. It is an argument from an antecedent to a consequent, from cause to effect. If, therefore, there be any thing existing in nature, or could have been, from which the being and attributes of God might have been derived, or any thing which can be justly considered as prior in order of nature or conception to the first cause of all things; then may the argument from such prior thing or principle be good and valid. But if there is in reality nothing prior to the being of God, considered as the first cause and casuality, nothing in nature, nothing in reason, then the attempt is fruitless to argue from it; and we improperly pretend to search into the grounds or reasons of the first cause, of whom antecedently we neither do nor can know any thing. As the force of the argument à priori has, however, been much debated, it may not be useless to enter somewhat more fully into the subject. One of the earliest, and ablest advocates of this mode of demonstrating the existence of God, was Dr. Samuel Clarke. He however first proceeds à posteriori to prove, from the actual existence of dependent beings, the existence from eternity of "one unchangeable and independent being;" and thus makes himself debtor to this obvious and plain demonstration before he can prove that this being is, in his sense, necessarily existNecessity of existence is therefore tacitly acknowledged, not to be a tangible idea in the first instance; and the weight of the proof is tacitly confessed to rest upon the argument from effect to cause, which "Upon the whole, after all the schemes and strug-ent. gles of a reluctant philosophy, the necessary resort is a Deity. The marks of design are too strong to be got over. Design must have had a designer. That de if admitted needs no assistance from a more abstract course of arguing. For if the first argument be allowed, every thing else follows; and it must be allowed before the higher ground of demonstration can be taken. We have seen the guarded manner in which Howe, in the quotation before given, has stated the notion of the necessary existence of the Divine Being. Dr. S. Clarke and his followers have refined upon this, and given a view of the subject which is liable to the strongest objections. His words are, "To be self-existent is to exist by an absolute necessity, originally in the nature of the thing itself;" and "this necessity must not be barely consequent upon our supposition of the existence of such a being, for then it would not be a necessity absolutely such in itself, nor be the ground or foundation of the existence of any thing, being on the contrary only a consequent of it; but it must antecedently force itself upon us whether we will or not; even when we are endeavouring to suppose that no such being exists."(2) and care should be taken to use the term in a definite and comprehensible sense. The word necessity, when applied to existence, may be taken in two acceptations, either as it arises from the relation which the existence of that of which it is affirmed has to the existence of other things, or from the relation which the actual existence of that thing has to the manner of its own existence. In the former sense, it denotes that the supposition of the non-existence of that of which the necessity is affirmed, implies the non-existence of things we know to exist. Thus some independent being does necessarily exist; because, to suppose no independent being implies that there are no dependent beings, the contrary of which we know to be true. In the second sense, necessity means that the being of which it is affirmed, exists after such a manner as that it never could in time past have been non-existent, or can in future time cease to be. Thus every independent being, as it exists without a cause, is necessarily existing, because existence is essential to such a being; so that it never could begin to exist, and never can cease to be; for to suppose a being to begin to exist, or to lose its existence, is to suppose a change from nonentity to entity, or vice versa; and to suppose such a change is to suppose a cause upon which that being depends. Every being, therefore, which is independent, that is, which had no cause of its existence, must exist neces sarily, and cannot possibly have begun to exist in time past, or cease to be in time future. One of the reasons given for this opinion is, "there must be in nature a permanent ground or reason for the existence of the first cause, otherwise its being would be owing to mere chance." But to this it has been well replied, "Why must we say that God has his existence from, or that he does exist for some prior cause or reason? Why may we not say that God exists as the first cause of all things, and thereupon surcease from all farther inquiries? God himself said 'I am,' and he had done. But the argument, if it did Still farther on Dr. S. Clarke's view of the necessary prove any thing, would prove too much. To evince existence of the Supreme Being, it has been observed, which, let the same way of reasoning be applied to "But what is this necessity which proves so much? what you call the ground or the reason of the exist-It is the ground of existence (he says) of that which exence of the first cause, and then with very little varia-ists of itself; and if so, it must, in the order of nature tion, I retort upon you in your own words. If this and in our conceptions, be antecedent to that Being of ground or reason be itself any thing, or any property whose existence it is the ground. Concerning such a of any thing, of what nature, kind, or degree soever, principle, there are but three suppositions which can there must, according to your way of reasoning, be in possibly be made; and all of them may be shown to be nature a ground or reason of the existence of such absurd and contradictory. We may suppose either your antecedent necessity, 'a reason why it is, rather the substance itself, some property of that substance, than why it is not, otherwise its existence will be owing or something extrinsic to both, to be this antecedent to, or dependent on mere chance.' You observe else- ground of existence prior in the order of nature to the where that nothing can be more absurd than to sup- first cause. pose that any thing, or any circumstance of any thing, "One would think, from the turn of the argument is, and yet that there is absolutely no reason why it is, which here represents this antecedent necessity as rather than why it is not.' This consideratio you al-efficient and casual, that it were considered as somelege as a vindication of your assigning a reason, à priori thing extrinsic to the first cause. Indeed, if the words for the existence of the first cause. If, therefore, your have any meaning in them at all, or any force of argusupposed reason, ground, or necessity be any thing or ment, they must be so understood, just as we underany supposable circumstance of any thing,' as surely stand them of any external cause producing its effect. it must be, if not mere nothing, then by the same rule, But as an extrinsic principle is absurd in itself, and is such 'ground,' 'necessity,' &c., must have a reason, besides rejected by Dr. S. Clarke, who says expressly, à priori, why it is, rather than why it is not, and after that, of the thing which derives not its being from any that another, and then a third, and so on in infinitum. other thing, this necessity or ground of existence must And thus in your way we may be always seeking a be in the thing itself;' we need not say a word more of first cause, and never be able to find one, whereon to the last of these suppositions. fix ourselves, or such our restless and unprofitable inquiries. While indeed we consider only inferior existences and second causes, there will always be room left for inquiring why such things are, and how such things came to be as they are; because this is only seeking and investigating the initial, the efficient, or the final cause of their existence. But when we are advanced beyond all causes, procatarctical-and final, it remains only to say, that such is our first cause and causality, that we know it exists, and without prior cause; and with this you yourself will be obliged to fall in, the first step you farther take; for if we ask you of the antecedent necessity, whence it is, and what prior ground there was for it, you must yourself be content to say-so it is, you know not why, you know not how."(3) The necessary existence of the first cause, considered as a logical necessity, may be made out without difficulty, and is indeed demonstrated in the arguments given above; but the natural necessity of his existence is a subject too subtle for human grasp, and, from its obscurity, is calculated to mislead. Every thing important in the idea, so far as it is unexceptionable, is well and safely expressed by Baxter. "That which could be eternally without a cause, and itself cause all things, is self-sufficient and independent."(4) This seems the only true notion of necessary existence, "Let us then consider the first; let us take the substance itself, and try whether it can be conceived as prior or antecedent to itself in our conceptions, or in the order of nature. Surely we need not observe that nothing can be more absurd or contradictory than such a supposition. Dr. S. Clarke himself repeatedly affirms, and it would be strange indeed if he did not affirm, that no being, no thing whatever, can be con ceived as in any respect prior to the first cause. "The only remaining supposition is, that some attribute or property of the self-existent being may be conceived as in the order of nature antecedent to that being. But this, if possible, is more absurd than either of the two preceding suppositions. An attribute is attributed to its subject as its ground or support, and not the subject to its attribute. A property, in the very notion of it, is proper to the substance to which it belongs, and subsequent to it both in our conceptions and in the order of nature. An antecedent attribute, or antecedent property, is a solecism as great, and a contradiction as flat, as an antecedent subsequent or a subsequent antecedent, understood in the same sense and in the same syllogism. Every property or attribute, as such, presupposes its subject, and cannot otherwise be understood. This is a truth so obvious and so forcible, that it sometimes extorts the assent even of those who, upon other occasions, labour to obscure it. It is confessed by Dr. S. Clarke, that the scholastie way of proving the existence of a self-existent being from the absolute perfection of his nature, is vσTɛpov wportpoy. For all or any perfections (says he) pre |