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does it become influential? By its relation with something else 

 upon which it acts. How is a result produced? By the conjoined 

 agency of the will, and some other causes, as in man, the material 

 organs, the muscles, &c. with which it is related. Does a mere 

 volition produce any thing which is not a volition; which is an 

 effect of volition? Our experience of the efficacy of volition is, that 

 it can act upon organic substances; and as most of those substances 

 which are said to be under the controul of an universal mind are 

 inorganic, so do they not belong to that class, of the subjection 

 of which to mind and volition we have an experience. 



8. It appears sufficiently plain that a mere volition can be 

 neither more nor less than what it is, that is, a volition, its own 

 identity, and that it can do nothing unless through the medium, or 

 with the concurrent operation, of something else. And of a virtue: 

 how far is this operative? Why, truly, as far as it supplies itself, as 

 far as it contributes its existence or its identity. Then it is evident 

 that if neither a volition nor a virtue is either an elephant or a 

 rhinoceros, that they can of themselves become neither one nor the 

 other. If they should lead to these results, such results arise from 

 them by the conjunction of causes; in the aggregate producing, or 

 forming, or bring such constitutions, the parts of which (or the 

 disunited existences of which) are pre-formed. This is our expe- 

 rience, our universal experience, our perceptive information in every 

 case in which an origin falls under the observation of the senses. 

 Have we a right to imagine any thing in opposition to it? 



9. It seems then that a creator can produce nothing tfe novo; 

 that he is either identified with things, or concurs only with them to 

 determine the order and combination of effects: and it necessarily 

 follows, if the argument be admitted, that things were coeval with 

 inch concurring agent, which latter can have only the force of a 

 cause; that is, can supply only itself or its own existence. 



10. There is in the universe a harmony that cannot be con- 

 templated without filling the soul with delight; there is a stu- 

 pendous scheme of agreement exhibited in all its parts; it is a 

 world that is admirable; and astonishes one no less in the con- 

 templation, than by the wonderful rapture which the contemplation 

 occasionally inspires. This harmony, this perfect agreement, this 

 mutual subordination, cannot be fortuitous, it is said; it must have 

 been so determined by the designing of an intelligent artificer. 

 Whether or not such a world was created, not having existed before, 

 by such an artificer, has been examined above: we are next to con- 

 sider whether such a one (an intellectual principle) mingles its influ- 

 ence among causes which were coeval with itself. 



11. Before we proceed to shew what sort of a world might be 

 produced in consonance with the preceding axioms of causation, we 

 will examine the grounds on which an intelligent designing creator 

 has been inferred from the harmony and adaptation displayed in 

 the parts and structures of the world. Regularity of constitution, 

 adaptation of causes to effects, and effects to final purposes, prove, 



