A, may be termed poffible and fomething. Something may be affirmed or denied of it. Something will apply to it, and therefore it is an object of thought. Whether we allow it to be the first idea of a poffibility or an impoffibilty, or the immediate confequence of the first idea, that it is or is not an object of thought, the conclufion will be the fame, whilst it is admitted, that an idea which annihilates itself cannot be conceived by God or man, as it plainly is not an object of thought. Now let me afk: is a fhining fun an impoffibility? This no one will affert. But has its poffibility any grounds? May I ask why it is poffible? Unquestionably it is poffible, because it is an object of thought; and it is an object of thought, because the ideas of a fun and of light are not incompatible. Thus the abfence, the want of incompatibility, is the ground of all poffibility; and the pofition of compatibility is founded on and prefuppofes the pofition of a fufficient caufe. Let us not cavil about the expreffion of abfence or want of incompatibility. This abfence forms a true reality; as the want of all imperfection produces the greatest perfection. Neither can the univerfality of this pofition be difputed. It extends itself folely to poffibilities, and ought not to be confounded with the pofition, that there is no effect without a cause. The latter is merely a deduction from the former, and is only applicable to things which actually are. If it be asked, is fuch a thing poffible? we should first inquire, is there any incompatibility in it? The ascertaining of this can alone determine its poffibility or impoffibility. But if every thing be grounded on poffibility, and poffibility be an object of thought, nothing without ground can be an object of thought. Every thing that is has its grounds. Nothing is without grounds. All our ideas certainly fpring from fuch an investigation, fince no idea can arife in any other way. A wooden whetstone is mentioned mentioned to me as a rarity. I laugh at it as an abfurdity, till I am convinced, that wood is capable of being petrified, and that the incompatibility which I at first suspected does not exist. If this be perfectly juft, we cannot long difpute, whether there be any idea fo fimple, that the prefence or absence of incompatibility in it cannot be determined, or which, in other words, has no grounds of poffibility or impoffibility. Certainly there is no fuch fimple idea for every imaginable fubject must have, or be capable of having a predicate; confequently, between the fubject and all poffible predicates there muft or must not be an incompatibility, or it ceases to be a subject, fubject, The ground of this lies in both. The fubject is never a purely fimple idea, fince it admits one predicate, and rejects another. We men never conceive a fubject without conjoining to it fome predicate, be it ever fo obfcurely: ftill lefs can a fimple idea be formed in the mind of the infinite being, to whom all poffible things prefent themselves in all poffible connections. Thus it would be granting too much, to fay, that a pofition without any ground is impoffible and inconceivable, at leaft with refpect to the human understanding; as I think I have proved, that it must be inconceivable to every thinking being. There is fuch a relation throughout the whole fphere of poffibilities, that two ideas muft in all cafes, be either capable or incapable of being conjoined. The ground of this confifts in their compatibility or incompatibility, and as far as they are capable of being combined in thought are they poffible, or impoffible, without reference to any particular thinking being. The following obfervations may fhew us how the human understanding arrives at a comprehenfion of what has or has not grounds. Throughout all nature we discover nothing wholly detached, nothing perfectly infulated, nothing which Hh 2 is is not on one fide or other connected with fomething elfe, and nothing indivifible or unconnected in a certain proportion of power and magnitude, or of quantity in general. This conftant obfervation of a never-failing and proportionate connection is the origin of our ideas of grounded and ungrounded, of cause and effect, and by this are they juftified. To this alfo may be added, Secondly, The neceffary affociation of our conceptions. We can have no conception, no perception, that is wholly folitary, and independent of every thing. Indeed we perceive an exact proportion of the affociated conceptions, at least if we pay a little attention to them. It is the nature of our mind to have affociated conceptions, and to affociate its ideas according to certain immutable laws. As in this respect the human mind agrees with all nature, and as in each there is fuch a conftant, complete, and proportionate affociation, which regulates what may be clearly conceived of the idea of grounded and ungrounded; this agreement in an affociation, which is abfolutely neceffary to our thinking, muft be the laft and decifive proof of the truth and universality of the pofition of fufficient causes, if it could not be proved by abstract reasoning. PROP. II. P. 6. On the Eternity of God's Existence. Ir the foregoing propofition be admitted, that fomething must have exifted from all eternity, or, that there never was a time when nothing existed, the fole queftion that remains is, whether a fucceffion of finite dependent beings can be that fomething which has exifted from eternity. To prove that it cannot, it is neceffary to fhew, that it is incompatible with the above propofition. I know none of our German philofophers who has more clearly and decifively fhewn this than the late Reimarus in his truths of natural religion, to which I refer thofe of my readers, to whom Hartley's conclufions are not fufficiently clear and convincing. In the mean time, as I confefs, that this important point deferves a more strict inveftigation, and fuller explanation than are here beftowed upon it, I will endeavour to elucidate our author's arguments. The first term of an infinite feries, fays he, would be an effect without a caufe, which, from the first propofition, is inadmiffible. The firft term, like all the other terms of this feries, is a fomething of itself, and diftinct from all the reft. Like thofe which follow, it must have a caufe external to itself, or fomething must be conceived prior to it; confequently it cannot be the firft. If it be objected, that, in an infinite feries or number, no first term can be admitted, and that whatever term we take can only be a continuation of a feries infinite a parte ante, this continuation of an infinite feries, in which there is no firft term, is deftitute of a fufficient cause; and, as our author justly observes, fuch a feries is ast impoffible and inconceivable as a number capable of increasing or decreasing without originating from, or arriving at unity. If it be afferted, that by increafing the terms to infinity we approach the caufe, or fufficient grounds, of the whole feries, and this infinite feries be compared with mathematical approximation, in which the magnitude fought is continually approached nearer, without our being able ever to reach it, our author rightly answers, that in fuch a cafe every step muft bring us nearer to the cause of this infinite feries: but this is not the cafe; for however far we go back, or however great we take the feries of dependent beings a parte ante, we are still equally distant from what is fought, namely, their Hh3 true not. true cause. Hence what is faid of infinite feries in mathematics is not applicable here; as in the former we approach the magnitude fought, in this we do In that the difference continually decreafes, and ultimately becomes imperceptible to us: in this, were we to go back to all eternity, the difference would ever remain the fame. Thus an infinite feries of finite beings is totally incompatible with the pofition of a fufficient caufe. This conclufion is more clearly and concifely deduced by Baumgarten. An infinite feries of dependent beings, is, from the propofition, an infinite feries of accidental things, none of which has the caufe of its existence in itself; fo that such a series must be without a caufe, if it do not originate from a prior neceffary being. The next conclufion of our author, that, if there be nothing more in the univerfe than a mere fucceffion of finite dependent beings, then there is fome degree of finitenefs fuperior to all the reft, applies to thofe, who, to remove the difficulty of accounting for the origin of certain finite beings, admit a being fuperior but ftill finite. This is fhifting the position of the difficulty without leffening it. Such a finite being, however high we place it, requires a cause equally with the leaft. This Hartley applies to man, and obferves, that as man cannot comprehend his own nature, he must imagine a finite being fuperior to him that can: but as this being must naturally be fuppofed in a fimilar fituation, he must go on till he arrives at an infinite being, or one capable of comprehending himself. He advances the general propofition, that no degree of finite being can be taken as the higheft, as a ftill higher degree is conceivable, and there is abfolutely no caufe, or no reafon, why fuch a higher degree should not exist. This question, the poffibility of which, if we admit the pofition of a fufficient caufe, fully proves its validity, ftill recurs, till we come to a being whose effence |