474 GENERAL REFLECTIONS ON 



things do exist, still fewer of the manner in which they 

 exist ; but all were anxious to know by what means they 

 were created. Almost the only question was, whether 

 God ought to be considered the immediate cause of the 

 effects we daily witness, or whether he has employed 

 mediate agents, such as Aoyoj vne gpurixoi, settled laws, 

 plastic natures, and a host of other instruments; of which, 

 granting them to exist, as possibly they may, we have 

 equally clear notions. Every decision on this subject has 

 however been futile. The most cogent argument, for in- 

 stance, which Cudworth advanced in favour of his plastic 

 nature, was founded on the apparent errors of organiza- 

 tion, those lusus naturcc which argue the agent, as he fan- 

 cied, to be imperfect. One does not, however, easily see 

 why he should have taken it for granted that these are im- 

 perfections which frustrate the particular, as well as what 

 we suppose to be the general views of the Creator. Nor 

 is it very clear how the choice of an erring agent in the 

 creation, can be less derogatory to omnipotence than di- 

 rect error. But, after all, the most singular argument of the 

 advocates of mediate agents has been, that the Divine Being 

 must necessarily be distracted among the mean, trifling and 

 infinitely numerous things which demand his attention, 

 on the supposition that he acts directly. I think I need 

 cite no more examples to prove that it does not follow be- 

 cause a man calls his maker Almighty, that he believes 

 him to be omnipotent. 



Having thus mentioned a few of the principal difficulties 

 which will ever throw some doubt and mystery round even 

 the most probable of the hypotheses which follow, we may 

 now refer to a subject which appears in itself indeed more 



