46 



Tilings, then, are either causes or effects: they are, however, 

 liable to be considered in three ways: first, by themselves, as 

 positive identities; second, in relation to other things, in which 

 light they are regarded as causes ; and, third, as effects, in rela- 

 tion to their own causes. AH virtue or power is comprised in 

 causes, for nothing can influence which does not become a cause. 

 All effects are produced by many causes; and all things are what 

 their causes make them. Thus much for the present, in the way 

 of recapitulation. 



29. If a thing which was before, as we say, ugly, should be- 

 come beautiful, what is it that makes it so? Plainly the influence 

 of some cause, or the possession or combination of that in which 

 it was before deficient. But then, it will be asked, what is it that 

 makes this addition, or, rather, who is it that projects a change 

 the result of which is beauty? To this I reply, a cause. Aye, 

 but what cause] One that held such a relation with the agents 

 concerned in the change, as to accomplish the end we have sup- 

 posed. But is it not necessary that design should interfere in the 

 process? How, I would ask again, does the design act? It can 

 have only the force of a cause ; and what is the proof that it is 

 capable of becoming a cause in such an instance, or, in other 

 words, that the agents concerned hold such a relation with design ? 

 We will define an example by way of illustration : let it be an 

 imaginary one. 



30. It is now February, and this extensive wood looks naked 

 and poor; Nature is asleep in the trees, and she cuts but an indiffe- 

 rent figure. Presently, it is May, and the wood looks smiling, 

 cheerful, luxuriant : the naked branches are covered with leaves, 

 and the appearance is as gay and beautiful as the shade is inviting. 

 Why do the branches shoot forth leaves? Shall we say, because 

 design moves the sap? Is it known then that design is capable of 

 putting sap in motion? In truth, we have no experience of it; 

 our experience of the power of design is simply this: that it has a 

 relation of re-agency with the parts and properties of animal 

 bodies; and its influence is never extended beyond the subject in 

 whom it exists, except by a volition which acts on the material 

 organs. Now I cannot prove that design is not capable of moving the 

 sap; but it is easy to shew that this is not deduced from our ex- 

 perience, or necessary to be supposed for the purpose of obviating 

 any other difficulty: and it will be seen, at the same time, that 

 nothing is gained by this intervention of design, as it will appear 

 that the same difficulty for which design was imagined will occur 

 again in the questions respecting itself. 



31. Ask how the whole is made? By its parts: how the 

 whole earth is made; or, what makes the whole earth? That 

 without which it cannot be the whole earth, viz. by its two halves : 

 and these? By their parts. In this way we may descend to par- 

 ticular bodies, as a stone by what is its identity determined? 

 By its parts also but then its figure? Its figure is conformable 



