Pray open up this argument a little further, said DEMEA, for I do not
rightly apprehend it in that concise manner in which you have expressed
it.

Our friend CLEANTHES, replied PHILO, as you have heard, asserts, that
since no question of fact can be proved otherwise than by experience, the
existence of a Deity admits not of proof from any other medium. The
world, says he, resembles the works of human contrivance; therefore its
cause must also resemble that of the other. Here we may remark, that the
operation of one very small part of nature, to wit man, upon another very
small part, to wit that inanimate matter lying within his reach, is the
rule by which CLEANTHES judges of the origin of the whole; and he
measures objects, so widely disproportioned, by the same individual
standard. But to waive all objections drawn from this topic, I affirm,
that there are other parts of the universe (besides the machines of human
invention) which bear still a greater resemblance to the fabric of the
world, and which, therefore, afford a better conjecture concerning the
universal origin of this system. These parts are animals and vegetables.
The world plainly resembles more an animal or a vegetable, than it does a
watch or a knitting-loom. Its cause, therefore, it is more probable,
resembles the cause of the former. The cause of the former is generation
or vegetation. The cause, therefore, of the world, we may infer to be
something similar or analogous to generation or vegetation.

But how is it conceivable, said DEMEA, that the world can arise from any
thing similar to vegetation or generation?

Very easily, replied PHILO. In like manner as a tree sheds its seed into
the neighbouring fields, and produces other trees; so the great
vegetable, the world, or this planetary system, produces within itself