as voluntary agents, and it is evident that mankind were influenced by impressions of this kind in the formation of the active verbs of all languages, in which actions are ascribed to objects incapable of volition, as when the sun is said to give light to the earth, the stream to overflow its banks, lightning to rive the oak, and noxious effluvia to occasion disease. Nor will the Atheist be able to derive any advantage from this phraseology, when it is kept in mind, that the doctrine strenuously maintained, is, that every secondary or necessary agent which exercises its influence in producing effects, must have received that influence from him whose power only is underived. CHAPTER III. The opinions of Philosophers, concerning the terms, cause, phenomenon, law of nature, &c. Felix, qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas. VIRG. GEO. 2d. 490. THAT we may not appear to have given arbitrary definitions of our terms, we shall next show that the meanings which we annex to them correspond with those which have been assigned them by the best philosophers, both of ancient and modern times. Under the division of efficient causes, Aristotle comprises all that are properly entitled to that denomination, when we speak with technical accuracy; and accordingly he defines philosophy to be a knowledge of causes. The expressions of Cicero prove that his ideas of a cause exactly coincide with those which we have endeavoured to establish. "Itaque, non sic causa intelligi debet," says he, t ut quod cuique antecedat id ei causa sit, sed quod cuique efficienter antecedat." That is to be deemed a true cause, not merely which precedes another thing, but that which, being prior to it, has efficiency to produce it. Mr. Locke gives the following account of the relation between cause and effect. "In the notice our senses take of the constant vicisitude of things, we cannot but observe that several particulars, both qualities and substances, begin to exist; and that they receive this their existence from the due application and operation of some other being. From this observation we get our ideas of cause and effect. That which produces any simple or complex ideas, we denote by the general name, cause, and that which is produced, effect. Thus finding that in that substance which we call wax, fluidity, which is a simple idea which was not in it before, is constantly produced by the application of a certain degree of heat, we call the simple idea of heat, in relation to fluidity in wax the cause of it, and fluidity the effect. So all finding Ꭰ This account so exact by us, that we think it that the substance wood, which is a certain collection of simple ideas so called, by the application of fire is turned into another substance called ashes, i. e. another complex idea, consisting of a collection of simple ideas, quite different from that complex idea which we call wood; we consider fire in relation to ashes as cause, and ashes as effect. So that whatever is considered by us to conduce or operate to the producing any particular simple idea, or collection of simple ideas, whether substance or mode which did not before exist, hath thereby in our minds the relation of a cause, and so is denominated by us. For to have the idea of cause and effect, it suffices to consider any simple idea or substance as beginning to exist by the operation of some other, without knowing the manner of that operation.”* ly corresponds to the doctrine held unnecessary to comment upon it. That the word agent, also, is used by Mr. Locke with precisely the same meaning as that which we have annexed to it, will appear from what he says in reference to the origin of our idea of power. "The mind being every day informed by the senses of the alteration of those simple ideas it observes in things without, and taking notice how one comes to an end and ceases to be, and another begins to exist which was not before; reflecting also on what passes within itself, and observing a constant change in its ideas, sometimes by the impressions of the outward objects of the senses, and sometimes by the determination of its own choice; and concluding from what it hath so constantly observed to have been, that the like changes will for the future be made in the same things by the like agents and by the like ways, considers in one thing the possibility of having any of its simple ideas changed, and in another the possibility of making that change; and so comes by that idea which we call power." Here we find that objects of the * Treatise on Understanding, book 2. ch. 26. senses as well as the principles of our minds are represented as agents operating to produce alterations in things. Thus we say," continues Mr. Locke," fire has a power to melt gold, that is, to destroy the consistency of its insensible parts, and consequently its hardness, and make it fluid; and the sun has a power to blanch wax, whereby the yellowness is destroyed, and whiteness made to exist in its room."* When these two passages are compared, it is evident, that the doctrine maintained by Mr. L. and which is exactly conformable to that which we have already assumed, is, that heat in the sun, or in a culinary fire, is that principle, cause or agent, which possesses a power or efficiency to blanch wax and dissolve gold. It is true, that this power and efficiency in material and finite agents cannot be original and underived, since there is no other Being who can possess underived power, but he who is independent and eternal: but there is no more difficulty in supposing that the Creator can endow some portions of the material world with the power to operate upon and produce alterations in others and in mind also, than there is in supposing that he hath communicated to living creatures the power of voluntary motion. These matters appear extremely plain and incontrovertible, and scarcely worthy of such detailed consideration; but the purpose for which we bring them forward will be obvious during the progress of this discussion, The opinions of Sir Isaac Newton upon this point, are similar to those which were entertained by the philosophers beforementioned. "Gravity," says he, "must be caused by an agent acting according to certain laws. In prescribing his rules of philosophising, causes are always referred to as principles existing in nature, and operating to produce their results. We are to admit, according to him, no more causes * Treatise on Under. book 2, ch. 21. of things than are both true and sufficient to explain the appearances; and again, to "the same natural effects we are, as far as possible, to assign the same causes." What can such expressions mean but such causes or principles as contain within themselves a power or efficiency to produce their results. Still more decisive proof of his views on this subject may be derived from the following passages of his works. "Qua causa efficiente hæ attractiones peragantur, id verò hic non inquiro. Quam ego attractionem appello, fieri sanè potest ut ea efficiatur impulsu, vel alio aliquo modo nobis ignoto. Hanc vocem attractionis ita hic accipi velim, ut in universum solummodo vim aliquam significare intelligatur, quâ corpora ad se mutuò tendant: cuicunque demum causæ attribuenda sit illa vis. Nam ex phænomenis naturæ illud nos prius edoctos oportet, quænam corpora se invicem attrahant, et quænam sint leges et proprietates istius attractionis; quam in id inquirere par sit, quànam efficiente causa peragatur attractio." (Optic ques. 23.) Again he says, in the same treatise. "Atque hæc quidem principia considero, non ut occultas qualitates, quæ ex specificis rerum formis oriri fingantur; sed ut universales naturæ leges, quibus res ipsæ sunt formatæ. Nam principia quidem talia revera existere, ostendunt phænomena naturæ; licet ipsorum causæ quæ sint, nondum fuerit explicatum. Affirmare singulas rerum species, specificis præditas esse qualitatibus occultis, per quas ea vim certam in agendo habeant, hoc utique est nihil dicere. At ex phænomenis naturæ, duo vel tria derivare generalia motus principia, et deinde explicare quemadmodum proprietates et actiones rerum corporearum omnium ex principiis istis consequantur, id vero magnus esset factus in philosophia progressus, etiamsi principiorum istorum causæ nondum essent cognitae.” To the same purport in his principia he proceeds. "Phænomena cælorum et maris nostri per vim gravitatis exposui, sed causam gravitatis nondum assignavi. Oritur atque hac vis a causa aliqua, quæ penetrat ad usque centra Solis |
