BOOK I PART III
force, without producing a different species of
that relation.
The distinction, which we often make be-
twixtownerand theexerciseof it, is equally
without foundation.
Thirdly, We may now be able fully to over-
come all that repugnance, which it is so natural
for us to entertain against the foregoing reason-
ing, by which we endeavoured to prove, that
the necessity of a cause to every beginning of
existence is not founded on any arguments ei-
ther demonstrative or intuitive. Such an opin-
ion will not appear strange after the foregoing
definitions. If we define a cause to be an ob-
ject precedent and contiguous to another, and
where all the objects resembling the farmer are
placed in a like relation of priority and conti-
guity to those objects, that resemble the latter;