| Accordingly we shall find upon examination, that every demonstration, which has been produced for the necessity of a cause, is fallacious and sophistical. |
| All the points of time and place, say some philosophers [Mr. |
| Hobbes.], in which we can suppose any object to be-in to exist, are in themselves equal; and unless there be some cause, which is peculiar to one time and to one place, and which by that means determines and fixes the existence, it must remain in eternal suspence; and the object can never begin to be, for want of something to fix its beginning. |
| But I ask; Is there any more difficulty in supposing the time and place to be fixed without a cause, than to suppose the existence to be determined in that manner? The first question that occurs on this subject is always, whether the object shall exist or not: The next, when and where it shall begin to exist. |
| If the removal of a cause be intuitively absurd in the one case, it must be so in the other: And if that absurdity be not clear without a proof in the one case, it will equally require one in the other. |
| The absurdity, then, of the one supposition can never be a proof of that of the other; since they are both upon the same footing, and must stand or fall by the same reasoning. |
| The second argument[Dr, Clarke and others.], which I find used on this head, labours under an equal difficulty. |
| Every thing, it is said, must have a cause; for if any thing wanted a cause, it would produce ITSELF; that is, exist before it existed; which is impossible. |
| But this reasoning is plainly unconclusive; because it supposes, that in our denial of a cause we still grant what we expressly deny, viz. |
| that there must be a cause; which therefore is taken to be the object itself; and that, no doubt, is an evident contradiction. |
| But to say that any thing is produced, of to express myself more properly, comes into existence, without a cause, is not to affirm, that it is itself its own cause; but on the contrary in excluding all external causes, excludes a fortiori the thing itself, which is created. |
| An object, that exists absolutely without any cause, certainly is not its own cause; and when you assert, that the one follows from the other, you suppose the very point in questions and take it for granted, that it is utterly impossible any thing can ever begin to exist without a cause, but that, upon the exclusion of one productive principle, we must still have recourse to another. |
| It is exactly the same case with the third argument[Mr. Locke.], which has been employed to demonstrate the necessity of a cause. |
| Whatever is produced without any cause, is produced by nothing; or in other words, has nothing for its cause. |
| But nothing can never be a cause, no more than it can be something, or equal to two right angles. |
| By the same intuition, that we perceive nothing not to be equal to two right angles, or not to be something, we perceive, that it can never be a cause; and consequently must perceive, that every object has a real cause of its existence. |
| I believe it will not be necessary to employ many words in shewing the weakness of this argument, after what I have said of the foregoing. |
| They are all of them founded on the same fallacy, and are derived from the same turn of thought. |
| It is sufficient only to observe, that when we exclude all causes we really do exclude them, and neither suppose nothing nor the object itself to be the causes of the existence; and consequently can draw no argument from the absurdity of these suppositions to prove the absurdity of that exclusion. |
| If every thing must have a cause, it follows, that upon the exclusion of other causes we must accept of the object itself or of nothing as causes. |
| But it is the very point in question, whether every thing must have a cause or not; and therefore, according to all just reasoning, it ought never to be taken for granted. |