be insisted on, without more experiments. I must confess, that
there is something in the fate of opinions a little
extraordinary. DES CARTES insinuated that doctrine of the
universal and sole efficacy of the Deity, without insisting on
it. MALEBRANCHE and other CARTESIANS made it the foundation of
all their philosophy. It had, however, no authority in England.
LOCKE, CLARKE, and CUDWORTH, never so much as take notice of
it, but suppose all along, that matter has a real, though
subordinate and derived power. By what means has it become so
prevalent among our modern metaphysicians?


PART II.


58. But to hasten to a conclusion of this argument, which is already
drawn out to too great a length: We have sought in vain for an idea of
power or necessary connexion in all the sources from which we could
suppose it to be derived. It appears that, in single instances of the
operation of bodies, we never can, by our utmost scrutiny, discover any
thing but one event following another, without being able to comprehend
any force or power by which the cause operates, or any connexion between
it and its supposed effect. The same difficulty occurs in contemplating
the operations of mind on body--where we observe the motion of the
latter to follow upon the volition of the former, but are not able to
observe or conceive the tie which binds together the motion and
volition, or the energy by which the mind produces this effect. The
authority of the will over its own faculties and ideas is not a whit
more comprehensible: So that, upon the whole, there appears not,
throughout all nature, any one instance of connexion which is