universal mind, from a like internal unknown cause, fall into
that arrangement. The equal possibility of both these
suppositions is allowed. But, by experience, we find, (according
to C/LEANTHES\), that there is a difference between them. Throw
several pieces of steel together, without shape or form; they
will never arrange themselves so as to compose a watch. Stone,
and mortar, and wood, without an architect, never erect a house.
But the ideas in a human mind, we see, by an unknown,
inexplicable economy, arrange themselves so as to form the plan
of a watch or house. Experience, therefore, proves, that there is
an original principle of order in mind, not in matter. From
similar effects we infer similar causes. The adjustment of means
to ends is alike in the universe, as in a machine of human
contrivance. The causes, therefore, must be resembling.

     I was from the beginning scandalised, I must own, with this
resemblance, which is asserted, between the Deity and human
creatures; and must conceive it to imply such a degradation of
the Supreme Being as no sound Theist could endure. With your
assistance, therefore, D/EMEA\, I shall endeavour to defend what
you justly call the adorable mysteriousness of the Divine Nature,
and shall refute this reasoning of C/LEANTHES\, provided he
allows that I have made a fair representation of it.

     When C/LEANTHES\ had assented, P/HILO\, after a short pause,
proceeded in the following manner.

     That all inferences, C/LEANTHES\, concerning fact, are
founded on experience; and that all experimental reasonings are
founded on the supposition that similar causes prove similar
effects, and similar effects similar causes; I shall not at
present much dispute with you. But observe, I entreat you, with
what extreme caution all just reasoners proceed in the
transferring of experiments to similar cases. Unless the cases be
exactly similar, they repose no perfect confidence in applying
their past observation to any particular phenomenon. Every
alteration of circumstances occasions a doubt concerning the
event; and it requires new experiments to prove certainly, that
the new circumstances are of no moment or importance. A change in
bulk, situation, arrangement, age, disposition of the air, or
surrounding bodies; any of these particulars may be attended with
the most unexpected consequences: And unless the objects be quite
familiar to us, it is the highest temerity to expect with
assurance, after any of these changes, an event similar to that
which before fell under our observation. The slow and deliberate
steps of philosophers here, if any where, are distinguished from
the precipitate march of the vulgar, who, hurried on by the
smallest similitude, are incapable of all discernment or
consideration.

     But can you think, C/LEANTHES\, that your usual phlegm and
philosophy have been preserved in so wide a step as you have
taken, when you compared to the universe houses, ships,
furniture, machines, and, from their similarity in some
circumstances, inferred a similarity in their causes? Thought,
design, intelligence, such as we discover in men and other
animals, is no more than one of the springs and principles of the
universe, as well as heat or cold, attraction or repulsion, and a
hundred others, which fall under daily observation. It is an
active cause, by which some particular parts of nature, we find,
produce alterations on other parts. But can a conclusion, with
any propriety, be transferred from parts to the whole? Does not
the great disproportion bar all comparison and inference? From
observing the growth of a hair, can we learn any thing concerning
the generation of a man? Would the manner of a leaf's blowing,
even though perfectly known, afford us any instruction concerning
the vegetation of a tree?

     But, allowing that we were to take the operations of one
part of nature upon another, for the foundation of our judgement
concerning the origin of the whole, (which never can be
admitted,) yet why select so minute, so weak, so bounded a
principle, as the reason and design of animals is found to be
upon this planet? What peculiar privilege has this little
agitation of the brain which we call thought, that we must thus
make it the model of the whole universe? Our partiality in our
own favour does indeed present it on all occasions; but sound
philosophy ought carefully to guard against so natural an
illusion.

     So far from admitting, continued P/HILO\, that the
operations of a part can afford us any just conclusion concerning
the origin of the whole, I will not allow any one part to form a
rule for another part, if the latter be very remote from the
former. Is there any reasonable ground to conclude, that the
inhabitants of other planets possess thought, intelligence,
reason, or any thing similar to these faculties in men? When
nature has so extremely diversified her manner of operation in
this small globe, can we imagine that she incessantly copies
herself throughout so immense a universe? And if thought, as we
may well suppose, be confined merely to this narrow corner, and
has even there so limited a sphere of action, with what propriety
can we assign it for the original cause of all things? The narrow
views of a peasant, who makes his domestic economy the rule for
the government of kingdoms, is in comparison a pardonable
sophism.

     But were we ever so much assured, that a thought and reason,
resembling the human, were to be found throughout the whole
universe, and were its activity elsewhere vastly greater and more