difficult, if not absolutely impossible, to deduce merely from
contemplating the works of nature; nor will the uniformity alone of the
plan, even were it allowed, give us any assurance of that attribute.
Whereas the argument a priori ...

You seem to reason, DEMEA, interposed CLEANTHES, as if those advantages
and conveniences in the abstract argument were full proofs of its
solidity. But it is first proper, in my opinion, to determine what
argument of this nature you choose to insist on; and we shall afterwards,
from itself, better than from its useful consequences, endeavour to
determine what value we ought to put upon it.

The argument, replied DEMEA, which I would insist on, is the common one.
Whatever exists must have a cause or reason of its existence; it being
absolutely impossible for any thing to produce itself, or be the cause of
its own existence. In mounting up, therefore, from effects to causes, we
must either go on in tracing an infinite succession, without any ultimate
cause at all; or must at last have recourse to some ultimate cause, that
is necessarily existent: Now, that the first supposition is absurd, may
be thus proved. In the infinite chain or succession of causes and
effects, each single effect is determined to exist by the power and
efficacy of that cause which immediately preceded; but the whole eternal
chain or succession, taken together, is not determined or caused by any
thing; and yet it is evident that it requires a cause or reason, as much
as any particular object which begins to exist in time. The question is
still reasonable, why this particular succession of causes existed from
eternity, and not any other succession, or no succession at all. If there
be no necessarily existent being, any supposition which can be formed is
equally possible; nor is there any more absurdity in Nothing's having
existed from eternity, than there is in that succession of causes which