The curious adapting of means to
ends, throughout all nature, resembles exactly, though it much
exceeds, the productions of human contrivance; of human designs,
thought, wisdom, and intelligence. Since, therefore, the effects
resemble each other, we are led to infer, by all the rules of
analogy, that the causes also resemble; and that the Author of
Nature is somewhat similar to the mind of man, though possessed
of much larger faculties, proportioned to the grandeur of the
work which he has executed. By this argument a posteriori, and by
this argument alone, do we prove at once the existence of a
Deity, and his similarity to human mind and intelligence.
I shall be so free, C/LEANTHES\, said D/EMEA\, as to tell
you, that from the beginning, I could not approve of your
conclusion concerning the similarity of the Deity to men; still
less can I approve of the mediums by which you endeavour to
establish it. What! No demonstration of the Being of God! No
abstract arguments! No proofs a priori! Are these, which have
hitherto been so much insisted on by philosophers, all fallacy,
all sophism? Can we reach no further in this subject than
experience and probability? I will not say that this is betraying
the cause of a Deity: But surely, by this affected candour, you
give advantages to Atheists, which they never could obtain by the
mere dint of argument and reasoning.
What I chiefly scruple in this subject, said P/HILO\, is not
so much that all religious arguments are by C/LEANTHES\ reduced
to experience, as that they appear not to be even the most
certain and irrefragable of that inferior kind.
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