The Religion of Nature Delineated by William Wollaston (mystery books to read .txt) 📕

forbear excess in eating and drinking. If he has the command of his own feet, so as to go either this way or that or no whither, as sure he has, it is in his power to abstain from ill company and vicious places. And so on.165

This suggests a very material thought: that forbearances, at least in all ordinary cases, are within our power;166 so that a man may, if he will, forbear to do that which contradicts truth; but where acting is required, that very often is not in his power. He may want abilities, or opportunities, and so may seem to contradict truth by his omission, which, if his infirmities and disadvantages were taken into the account, and the case was rightly stated, he would be found not to do.

V Truths Relating to the Deity: Of His Existence, Perfection, Providence, etc.

I have shown in what the nature of moral good and evil consists: viz. a conformity or disagreement to truth, and those things that are coincident with it, reason and happiness; also, how truth is discovered: by sense, or reason, or both. I shall now specify some of those truths which are of greatest importance and influence, and require more reasoning to discover them; leaving the rest (common matters of fact) to the common ways of finding them. They respect principally either the Deity, or ourselves, or the rest of mankind. The first sort are the subject of this section.

I. Where there is a subordination of causes and effects, there must necessarily be a cause in nature prior to the rest, uncaused. Or thus, Where there is a series, in which the existence of one thing depends upon another, the existence of this again upon same other, and so upwards, as the case shall be, there must be some independent being, upon whom it does originally depend.

If Z (some body) be put into motion by Y, Y by X, and X by W, it is plain that X moves Y, and Y moves Z only as they are first moved, X by W, and Y by X: that Z, Y, X are moveds, or rather Z more Y more X, taken together,167 are one moved; that W stands here as the first mover, or author of the motion, unmoved by any other; that therefore without W there would be a moved without a mover, which is absurd;168 and lastly, that of what length soever the series may be, the case will be ever the same: i.e. if there be no First mover,169 unmoved, there must be a moved without a mover.

Further, if W, whom we will suppose to be an intelligent being, and to have a power of beginning motion, has this power originally in himself and independently of all others, then, here, not only the first mover in this series, but a First being and original cause is found. Because that, which has a power of beginning motion independent of any other, is a mover independent, and therefore is independent, or has an independent existence, since nothing can be a mover without being. But if W has not this power independently in himself, then he must receive it from some other, upon whom he depends, and whom we will call V. If then V has a power of conferring a faculty of producing motion, originally and independently in himself, here will be a First, independent cause. And if it can be supposed that he has it not thus, and that the series should rise too high for us to follow it, yet however we cannot but conclude that there is some such cause, upon whom this train of beings and powers must depend, if we reason as in the former paragraph. For,

Universally, if Z be any effect whatsoever, proceeding from or depending upon Y as the cause of its existence, Y upon X, X upon W, it is manifest that the existence of all⁠—Z, Y, X⁠—does originally come from W, which stands here as the Supreme cause, depending upon nothing: and that, without it, X could not be, and consequently neither Y, nor Z. Z, Y, X, being all effects (or dependents), or rather Z more Y more X one effect, without W there would be an effect without a cause. Lastly, let this retrogression from effects to their causes be continued ever so far, the same thing will still recur, and without such a cause as is before mentioned the whole will be an effect without an efficient, or a dependent without anything to depend upon: i.e. dependent, and not dependent.

Objection: The series may ascend infinitely,170 and for that reason have no first mover or cause. Answer: If a series of bodies moved can be supposed to be infinite, then, taken together, it will be equal to an infinite body moved, and this moved will not less require a mover than a finite body, but infinitely more. If I may not be permitted to place a first mover at the top of the series, because it is supposed to be infinite and to have no beginning, yet still there must of necessity be some cause or author of the motion,171 different from all these bodies, because their being (by the supposition) no one body in the series that moves the next, but only in consequence of its being moved first itself, there is no one of them that is not moved, and the whole can be considered together but as an infinite body moved, and which must therefore be moved by something.

The same kind of answer holds good in respect of all effects and their causes in general. An infinite succession of effects will require an infinite efficient, or a cause infinitely effective: so far is it from requiring none.

Suppose a chain