If it be used in that other sense, by which it stands for the ideas of things, what they are in themselves, and what in their circumstances, causes, consequences, respects; or, in short, that which determines them to be of this or that kind (as when we say, the nature of justice219 requires this or that, i.e. the idea of justice requires or supposes it; a crime is of such a nature, that is, bears such a respect to the law, and is attended with such circumstances; or the like): then none of these senses can do an atheist any service.
If it be used for the world220 (as, the laws of nature may be understood to be the laws of the world, by which it is governed, and the phenomena in it produced; after the same manner of speaking as when we say, the laws of England, France, etc.) then it stands for that very thing, the former and architect of which is the object of our inquiry, and therefore cannot be that architect itself. Under this sense may be comprehended that, when it denotes reality of existence, as when it is said that such a thing is not in nature (not to be found in the world).
If it signifies the forementioned laws themselves, or that course in which things by virtue of these laws proceed (as when the effects of these laws are styled the works of nature), then, laws suppose some legislator, and are posterior to that of which they are the laws. There can be no laws of any nation, till the people are of which that nation consists.
If it be used after the same manner as the word “habit” frequently is, to which many things are ascribed (just as they are to nature), though it be nothing existing distinct from the habits which particular men or beings contract, then nature is a kind of abstract notion, which can do nothing. Perhaps “nature” may be put for natures, all natures, after the manner of a collective noun; or it may be mentioned as an agent only as we personify virtues and attributes, either for variety, or the shorter and more convenient expressing of things.
Lastly, if it denotes the Author of nature, or God221 (the effect seeming, though by a hard metonymy in this case, to be put for the efficient), then, to Him it is that I ascribe the formation of the world, etc.
To all which I must subjoin that there is an unaccountable liberty taken in the use of this word, and that frequently it is used merely as a word, and nothing more, they who use it not knowing themselves what they mean by it.222 However, in no sense can it supersede the being of a Deity.
XV. Life, sense, agitation, and the faculties of our own minds show the existence of some superior Being from whom they are derived, Or, God is that Being, without whom neither could these be, any more than the things before mentioned. That they cannot flow from the nature of any matter about us, as matter, or from any modification, size, or motion of it, if it be not already apparent, may perhaps be proved more fully afterwards. And that our souls themselves are not self-existent, nor hold their faculties independently of all other beings, follows from propositions IV and VII. Therefore, we must necessarily be indebted for what we have, of this kind, to some great Benefactor who is the fountain of them. For, since we are conscious that we have them, and yet have them not of ourselves, we must have them from some other.
A man has little reason, God knows, to fancy the suppositum of his life, sense, and cogitative faculties to be an independent being, when he considers how transitory and uncertain at best his life and all his enjoyments are: what he is, whence he came, and whither he is going.223 The mind acts not, or in the most imperceptible manner, in animalculo, or the seminal state of a man; only as a principle of vegetation in the state of an embryon; and as a sensitive soul in the state of infancy, at least for some time, in which we are rather below than above many other animals. By degrees indeed, with age and exercise and proper opportunities, it seems to open itself, find its own talents, and ripen into a rational being. But then it reasons not without labor, and is forced to take many tedious steps in the pursuit of truth; finds all its powers subject to great eclipses and diminutions, in the time of sleep, indisposition, sickness, etc., and at best reaching but a few objects in respect of all that are in the immensity of the universe; and, lastly, is obnoxious to many painful sensations and reflections. Had the soul of man the principle of its own existence and faculties within itself, clear of all dependence, it could not be liable to all these limitations and defects, to all these alterations and removes from one state to another: it must certainly be constant to itself, and persist in a uniform manner of being.
There may be, perhaps, who will say, that the soul, together with life, sense, etc., are propagated by traduction from parents to children, from them to their children again, and so from eternity,224 and that therefore nothing can be collected from the nature of them as to the existence of a Deity. Answer: if there could be such a traduction, yet to suppose one traduced to come from another traduced, and so
