The dissimilitude
is so striking, that the utmost you can here pretend to is a
guess, a conjecture, a presumption concerning a similar cause;
and how that pretension will be received in the world, I leave
you to consider.
It would surely be very ill received, replied C/LEANTHES\;
and I should be deservedly blamed and detested, did I allow, that
the proofs of a Deity amounted to no more than a guess or
conjecture. But is the whole adjustment of means to ends in a
house and in the universe so slight a resemblance? The economy of
final causes? The order, proportion, and arrangement of every
part? Steps of a stair are plainly contrived, that human legs may
use them in mounting; and this inference is certain and
infallible. Human legs are also contrived for walking and
mounting; and this inference, I allow, is not altogether so
certain, because of the dissimilarity which you remark; but does
it, therefore, deserve the name only of presumption or
conjecture?17
Good God! cried D/EMEA\, interrupting him, where are we?
Zealous defenders of religion allow, that the proofs of a Deity
fall short of perfect evidence! And you, P/HILO\, on whose
assistance I depended in proving the adorable mysteriousness of
the Divine Nature, do you assent to all these extravagant
opinions of C/LEANTHES\? For what other name can I give them? or,
why spare my censure, when such principles are advanced,
supported by such an authority, before so young a man as
P/AMPHILUS\?
You seem not to apprehend, replied P/HILO\, that I argue
with C/LEANTHES\ in his own way; and, by showing him the
dangerous consequences of his tenets, hope at last to reduce him
to our opinion.
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