all its parts must be configurated, ranged, and moved a certain way
and to a certain degree. Now, who is it that knew how to find, with
so much niceness, that proportion, order, and motion that way, and
to such a degree, above and below which matter would never think?
Who is it that has given all those just, exact, and precise
modifications to a vile and shapeless matter, in order to form the
body of a child, and to render it rational by degrees? If, on the
contrary, it be affirmed that matter cannot become a thinking
substance without adding something to it, and that another being
must be united to it, I ask, what will that other thinking being be,
whilst the matter, to which it is united, only moves? Therefore,
here are two natures or substances very unlike and distinct. We
know one by figures and local motions only; as we do the other by
perceptions and reasonings. The one does not imply, or create the
idea of the other, for their respective ideas have nothing in
common.


SECT. XLV. Of the Union of the Soul and Body, of which God alone
can be the Author.


But now, how comes it to pass that beings so unlike are so
intimately united together in man? Whence comes it that certain
motions of the body so suddenly and so infallibly raise certain
thoughts in the soul? Whence comes it that the thoughts of the
soul, so suddenly and so infallibly, occasion certain motions in the
body? Whence proceeds so regular a society, for seventy or
fourscore years, without any interruption? How comes it to pass
that this union of two beings, and two operations, so very