vegetation; and, perhaps, even that vague, indeterminate word, Nature, to
which the vulgar refer every thing, is not at the bottom more
inexplicable. The effects of these principles are all known to us from
experience; but the principles themselves, and their manner of operation,
are totally unknown; nor is it less intelligible, or less conformable to
experience, to say, that the world arose by vegetation, from a seed shed
by another world, than to say that it arose from a divine reason or
contrivance, according to the sense in which CLEANTHES understands it.

But methinks, said DEMEA, if the world had a vegetative quality, and
could sow the seeds of new worlds into the infinite chaos, this power
would be still an additional argument for design in its author. For
whence could arise so wonderful a faculty but from design? Or how can
order spring from any thing which perceives not that order which it
bestows?

You need only look around you, replied PHILO, to satisfy yourself with
regard to this question. A tree bestows order and organisation on that
tree which springs from it, without knowing the order; an animal in the
same manner on its offspring; a bird on its nest; and instances of this
kind are even more frequent in the world than those of order, which arise
from reason and contrivance. To say, that all this order in animals and
vegetables proceeds ultimately from design, is begging the question; nor
can that great point be ascertained otherwise than by proving, a priori,
both that order is, from its nature, inseparably attached to thought; and
that it can never of itself, or from original unknown principles, belong
to matter.

But further, DEMEA; this objection which you urge can never be made use
of by CLEANTHES, without renouncing a defence which he has already made