Does experience shew us more of a man
than that he came from a man and a woman? To allow therefore that all
men must have come from a man and a woman is as far as we can argue
upon the subject, whilst in reasoning we trust to experience. An
argument is well built upon similarity, therefore it is probable if one
horse had a cause all horses had. But will not the argument be more
consonant to itself, in supposing all horses had the same cause, and as
one is seen to be generated from a horse and a mare so all were from
all eternity. It were a better argument in favour of a Deity or some
invisible agent to shew that a new animal came every now and then into
life, without any body's knowing how or where.
It is allowed by Priestley and all other reasoners, that the most
capital argument that can be formed in support of any thesis is to be
built upon experience, or analogy to experience. Yet will many of these
reasoners, Dr. Priestley at least for one, contend at the same time for
the probability of a future life, when no instance can be given of any
revival whatsoever. The same will contend, that their Deity can at
pleasure form new species of animals, though in fact we never do see
new beings come into existence. We ought only to argue from experience;
and experience would teach us, that the species of all animals has
eternally existed. Grant that we do not know, whether man has been
eternal, or from a time, is it therefore because we do not know, that
we must say he came from God? That unknown Being, as he is sometimes
pompously and ridiculously called! The Devil is equally an unknown
Being.
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