195 



'Lectures, p. 139j,and,.bj Mtj^ Po:g^i\\&fi. ^A^^^d^ Tenser, 



• chap. viii. -rrr •,';■;-; -—;':;; '''>';r:<»-d :>- r- M'r"^- 



At the latter end of the same year, an anonymous 



/.writer, stiling himself a Gentleman of Gloucestershire, but 

 thought to be Dr. Joseph Butler, represented, to Dr. Clarke, 

 some difficulties, Avhich had occurred to him,, iuthe Doc- 



- tor's exceileiit treatise, intitled, a Demonstration of the Being 

 and Attributes of God; for having there, asserted,, that the 

 ■necessity of the Supreme Being must. Ixaye existed every 

 ■where, pis well as always. Dr. Butler informed- him, he did 

 not perceive any connexion between ubiq^uity and heces- 



. sary existence. Dr. Clarke replied, that he considered space 

 as a mode of the self-existing substance; and, being evi- 

 dently necessary itself, proyes tliat thp . sula^tance, of Avhich 

 it is a property, must al^o.^bc nejcess^aryf Nay, he adds, 



■ that extension is necessary to the • existencp of every be- 

 ing. In his third reply, he is still more explicit: for he 

 asserts, that all other sub6tai;i,ces ai'e in space, and are 

 penetrated by it; but the selfr^psting substance is, not in 

 . space, nor penetrated . by, ^,tj,, but is, itself,; as if it were, 

 the substratum, of space, the ground of the existence of 

 space and duration. : Dr. Butl(^|", in his fourth Letter, 

 owns himself convinced of what lie: at .tirst doubted, that 

 a necessary being must exist every av here ;: and Dr. Clarke, 

 in his answer to that Le;tjt(^',.^fipp,^f?aciiepj inu^h nearer to 

 the. truth than he had before doup,, though still far from 

 it. He says, " the idcct. of space 4s^n a.bstract or partial 

 " idea, of a certain quality or relation, w.hich we evi- 



""'dently 



