BOOK I PART III
nate ideas being allowed to be false, it follows,
that the supposition of a deity can serve us in
no stead, in accounting for that idea of agency,
which we search for in vain in all the objects,
which are presented to our senses, or which we
are internally conscious of in our own minds.
For if every idea be derived from an impres-
sion, the idea of a deity proceeds from the same
origin; and if no impression, either of sensation
or reflection, implies any force or efficacy, it is
equally impossible to discover or even imag-
ine any such active principle in the deity. Since
these philosophers, therefore, have concluded,
that matter cannot be endowed with any effica-
cious principle, because it is impossible to dis-
cover in it such a principle; the same course of
reasoning should determine them to exclude it
from the supreme being. Or if they esteem that
opinion absurd and impious, as it really is, I