282 Thesoul necessarily living,

shattered bodies from dust and corruption (/)•

XII. But

(I) When ye seriously reflect on what is only acci-dentally mentioned here, we may observe with concern,that men generally admit of a kind of fabulous age intotheir philosophy. All beyond a certain date is held con-jectural. We fee a regular vicissitude of things obtain :and this is all we allow as certain: How it was at firstinstituted, if ever it was instituted, or if it requires anypower to maintain it, or if any power was manifested inthe first production of things; these are points that mestthink can only be decided by guessing. Aristotle and Ep ' 1 'cam have made the two leading guesses; the one, thatthis constitution was eternal ; the other, that it was hitupon by chance. These we follow. And the naturalpowers of matter (activities of an inert substance) patchup the scheme. Surely reason, which discovers to us thenature of an effect from that of a cause , may let in lightupon this conjectural period of philosophy. Reason wa*as much reason from eternity, as at this day. A contra-diction that cannot obtain now, could not have obtainedmillions of ages ago. This is an everlasting standard. Wemay be as certain that there cannot be a felf-existent ef-fect ; that dead matter could not have determined )tsown location, figure, motion, quantity; that poW escannot be exerted but by a powerful Being, & c - W^may be as certain, I fay, of these points, as if we h a ^existed from the beginning, and been eye-witneffes of 3that ever happened. Nor is the power of that beinS’who first reared theUniverse,and performed the first w 011 ^ders, now grown old and decayed. I have endeavours