into the grossest impieties and absurdities. For upon the same account,
that we have recourse to him in natural operations, and assert that
matter cannot of itself communicate motion, or produce thought, viz.
because there is no apparent connexion betwixt these objects; I say,
upon the very same account, we must acknowledge that the deity is the
author of all our volitions and perceptions; since they have no more
apparent connexion either with one another, or with the supposed but
unknown substance of the soul. This agency of the supreme Being we know
to have been asserted by [As father Malebranche and other Cartesians.]
several philosophers with relation to all the actions of the mind,
except volition, or rather an inconsiderable part of volition; though it
is easy to perceive, that this exception is a mere pretext, to avoid the
dangerous consequences of that doctrine. If nothing be active but
what has an apparent power, thought is in no case any more active than
matter; and if this inactivity must make us have recourse to a deity,
the supreme being is the real cause of all our actions, bad as well as
good, vicious as well as virtuous.

Thus we are necessarily reduced to the other side of the dilemma, viz..
that all objects, which are found to be constantly conjoined, are upon
that account only to be regarded as causes and effects. Now as
all objects, which are not contrary, are susceptible of a constant
conjunction, and as no real objects are contrary: it follows, that for
ought we can determine by the mere ideas, any thing may be the cause
or effect of any thing; which evidently gives the advantage to the
materialists above their antagonists.

To pronounce, then, the final decision upon the whole; the question
concerning the substance of the soul is absolutely unintelligible: All
our perceptions are not susceptible of a local union, either with what
is extended or unextended: there being some of them of the one kind,
and some of the other: And as the constant conjunction of objects
constitutes the very essence of cause and effect, matter and motion may
often be regarded as the causes of thought, as far as we have any notion
of that relation.

It is certainly a kind of indignity to philosophy, whose sovereign
authority ought every where to be acknowledged, to oblige her on every
occasion to make apologies for her conclusions, and justify herself to
every particular art and science, which may be offended at her. Thi