I never asserted so absurd a Proposition, as that any thing might arise without a Cause: I only maintained, that our Certainty of the Falsehood ... » Go

If we see a house ... we conclude, with the greatest certainty, that it had an architect or builder; because this is precisely that species ... » Go

Examine it in all lights, and see if you can find that matter of fact, or real existence, which you call vice. In which-ever way ... » Go

In a word, Cleanthes, a man who follows your hypothesis is able perhaps to assert, or conjecture, that the universe, sometime, arose from something like ... » Go

If reason (I mean abstract reason, derived from inquiries a priori) be not alike mute with regard to all questions concerning cause and effect, this ... » Go

You need only look around you, replied Philo, to satisfy yourself with regard to this question. A tree bestows order and organisation on that tree ... » Go

In such a chain, too, or succession of objects, each part is caused by that which preceded it, and causes that which succeeds it. Where ... » Go

But though these external insults, said Demia, from animals, from men, from all the elements, which assault us form a frightful catalogue of woes, they ... » Go

And why should man, added he, pretend to an exemption from the lot of all other animals? The whole earth, believe me, Philo, is cursed ... » Go

Hear the verbal protestations of all men: Nothing so certain as their religious tenets. Examine their lives: You will scarcely think that they repose the ... » Go

The more exquisite any good is, of which a small specimen is afforded us, the sharper is the evil, allied to it; and few exceptions ... » Go

The universal propensity to believe in invisible, intelligent power, if not an original instinct, being at least a general attendant of human nature, may be ... » Go

To oppose the torrent of scholastic religion by such feeble maxims as these, that it is impossible for the same thing to be and not ... » Go

That original intelligence, say the Magians, who is the first principle of all things, discovers himself immediately to the mind and understanding alone; but has ... » Go

As every enquiry, which regards religion, is of the utmost importance, there are two questions in particular, which challenge our attention, to wit, that concerning ... » Go

[U]pon the whole, we may conclude that the Christian Religion not only was at first attended with miracles, but even at this day cannot be believed by ... » Go

Nothing appears more surprizing to those, who consider human affairs with a philosophical eye, than the easiness with which the many are governed by the ... » Go

When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this ... » Go

It is a great mortification to the vanity of man, that his utmost art and industry can never equal the meanest of nature’s productions, either ... » Go

It is universally acknowledged that there is a great uniformity among the actions of men, in all nations and ages, and that human nature remains still the ... » Go

Nature has pointed out a mixed kind of life as most suitable to the human race, and secretly admonished them to allow none of these ... » Go

In all ages of the world, priests have been enemies to liberty; and it is certain, that this steady conduct of theirs must have been ... » Go

It is a very comfortable reflection to the lovers of liberty, that this peculiar privilege of Britain is of a kind that cannot easily be ... » Go

There is an inconvenience which attends all abstruse reasoning, that it may silence, without convincing an antagonist, and requires the same intense study to make ... » Go