61. ANSWER.--To all which I answer, first, that though there were some
difficulties relating to the administration of Providence, and the uses
by it assigned to the several parts of nature, which I could not solve by
the foregoing principles, yet this objection could be of small weight
against the truth and certainty of those things which may be proved a
priori, with the utmost evidence and rigor of demonstration. Secondly,
but neither are the received principles free from the like difficulties;
for, it may still be demanded to what end God should take those
roundabout methods of effecting things by instruments and machines, which
no one can deny might have been effected by the mere command of His will
without all that apparatus; nay, if we narrowly consider it, we shall
find the objection may be retorted with greater force on those who hold
the existence of those machines without of mind; for it has been made
evident that solidity, bulk, figure, motion, and the like have no
activity or efficacy in them, so as to be capable of producing any one
effect in nature. See sect. 25. Whoever therefore supposes them to exist
(allowing the supposition possible) when they are not perceived does it
manifestly to no purpose; since the only use that is assigned to them, as
they exist unperceived, is that they produce those perceivable effects
which in truth cannot be ascribed to anything but Spirit.

62. (FOURTHLY.)--But, to come nigher the difficulty, it must be observed
that though the fabrication of all those parts and organs be not
absolutely necessary to the producing any effect, yet it is necessary
to the producing of things in a constant regular way according to
the laws of nature. There are certain general laws that run through
the whole chain of natural effects; these are learned by the observation
and study of nature, and are by men applied as well to the framing
artificial things for the use and ornament of life as to the
explaining various phenomena--which explication consists only in