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chance could produce what the greatest genius can never sufficiently admire. I shall
not examine the justness of this argument. I shall allow it to be as solid as my antag-
onists and accusers can desire. It is sufficient, if I can prove, from this very reasoning,
that the question is entirely speculative, and that, when, in my philosophical disqui-
sitions, I deny a providence and a future state, I undermine not the foundations of
society, but advance principles, which they themselves, upon their own topics, if
they argue consistently, must allow to be solid and satisfactory.
You then, who are my accusers, have acknowledged, that the chief or sole argu-
ment for a divine existence (which I never questioned) is derived from the order of
nature; where there appear such marks of intelligence and design, that you think it
extravagant to assign for its cause, either chance, or the blind and unguided force of
matter. You allow, that this is an argument drawn from effects to causes. From the order
of the work, you infer, that there must have been project and forethought in the work-
man. If you cannot make out this point, you allow, that your conclusion fails; and you
pretend not to establish the conclusion in a greater latitude than the phenomena of
nature will justify. These are your concessions. I desire you to mark the consequences.
When we infer any particular cause from an effect, we must proportion the one to
the other, and can never be allowed to ascribe to the cause any qualities, but what are
exactly sufficient to produce the effect. A body of ten ounces raised in any scale may
serve as a proof, that the counterbalancing weight exceeds ten ounces; but can never
afford a reason that it exceeds a hundred. If the cause, assigned for any effect, be not suf-
ficient to produce it, we must either reject that cause, or add to it such qualities as will
give it a just proportion to the effect. But if we ascribe to it further qualities, or affirm it
capable of producing other effects, we can only indulge the licence of conjecture, and
arbitrarily suppose the existence of qualities and energies, without reason or authority.
The same rule holds, whether the cause assigned be brute unconscious matter, or a
rational intelligent being. If the cause be known only by the effect, we never ought to
ascribe to it any qualities, beyond what are precisely requisite to produce the effect: Nor
can we, by any rules of just reasoning, return back from the cause, and infer other effects
from it, beyond those by which alone it is known to us. No one, merely from the sight of
one of Zeuxis’s pictures, could know, that he was also a statuary or architect, and was an
artist no less skilful in stone and marble than in colours. The talents and taste, displayed
in the particular work before us; these we may safely conclude the workmen to be pos-
sessed of. The cause must be proportioned to the effect; and if we exactly and precisely
proportion it, we shall never find in it any qualities, that point farther, or afford an infer-
ence concerning any other design or performance. Such qualities must be somewhat
beyond what is merely requisite for producing the effect, which we examine.
Allowing, therefore, the gods to be the authors of the existence or order of the
universe; it follows, that they possess that precise degree of power, intelligence, and
benevolence, which appears in their workmanship; but nothing farther can ever be
proved, except we call in the assistance of exaggeration and flattery to supply the
defects of argument and reasoning. So far as the traces of any attributes, at present,
appear, so far may we conclude these attributes to exist. The supposition of farther
attributes is mere hypothesis; much more the supposition, that, in distant regions of
space or periods of time, there has been, or will be, a more magnificent display of these
attributes, and a scheme of administration more suitable to such imaginary virtues. We
can never be allowed to mount up from the universe, the effect, to Jupiter, the cause; and
then descend downwards, to infer any new effect from that cause; as if the present
effects alone were not entirely worthy of the glorious attributes, which we ascribe to