Push the same inference a
step further, and you will find a numerous society of deities as
explicable as one universal deity, who possesses within himself
the powers and perfections of the whole society. All these
systems, then, of Scepticism, Polytheism, and Theism, you must
allow, on your principles, to be on a like footing, and that no
one of them has any advantage over the others. You may thence
learn the fallacy of your principles.
* * * *
PART 7
But here, continued P/HILO\, in examining the ancient system
of the soul of the world, there strikes me, all on a sudden, a
new idea, which, if just, must go near to subvert all your
reasoning, and destroy even your first inferences, on which you
repose such confidence. If the universe bears a greater likeness
to animal bodies and to vegetables, than to the works of human
art, it is more probable that its cause resembles the cause of
the former than that of the latter, and its origin ought rather
to be ascribed to generation or vegetation, than to reason or
design. Your conclusion, even according to your own principles,
is therefore lame and defective.
Pray open up this argument a little further, said D/EMEA\,
for I do not rightly apprehend it in that concise manner in which
you have expressed it.
Our friend C/LEANTHES\, replied P/HILO\, as you have heard,
asserts, that since no question of fact can be proved otherwise
than by experience, the existence of a Deity admits not of proof
from any other medium.
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