immediately extinguished? Though the maxims of Nature be in general very
frugal, yet instances of this kind are far from being rare; and any one
of them is a sufficient proof of design, and of a benevolent design,
which gave rise to the order and arrangement of the universe.

At least, you may safely infer, said PHILO, that the foregoing hypothesis
is so far incomplete and imperfect, which I shall not scruple to allow.
But can we ever reasonably expect greater success in any attempts of this
nature? Or can we ever hope to erect a system of cosmogony, that will be
liable to no exceptions, and will contain no circumstance repugnant to
our limited and imperfect experience of the analogy of Nature? Your
theory itself cannot surely pretend to any such advantage, even though
you have run into Anthropomorphism, the better to preserve a conformity
to common experience. Let us once more put it to trial. In all instances
which we have ever seen, ideas are copied from real objects, and are
ectypal, not archetypal, to express myself in learned terms: You reverse
this order, and give thought the precedence. In all instances which we
have ever seen, thought has no influence upon matter, except where that
matter is so conjoined with it as to have an equal reciprocal influence
upon it. No animal can move immediately any thing but the members of its
own body; and indeed, the equality of action and reaction seems to be an
universal law of nature: But your theory implies a contradiction to this
experience. These instances, with many more, which it were easy to
collect, (particularly the supposition of a mind or system of thought
that is eternal, or, in other words, an animal ingenerable and immortal);
these instances, I say, may teach all of us sobriety in condemning each
other, and let us see, that as no system of this kind ought ever to be
received from a slight analogy, so neither ought any to be rejected on
account of a small incongruity. For that is an inconvenience from which
we can justly pronounce no one to be exempted.