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To see what light we receive from Nature to direct our Actions, and how far we are Naturally able to obey that Light; Men must be consider'd purely as in the state of Nature, viz. as having no extrinsick Law to direct them, but indu'd only with a faculty of comparing their distant Ideas by intermediate Ones, and Thence of deducing, or infering one thing from another; whereby our Knowledge immediately received from Sense, or Reflection, is inlarg'd to a view of Truths remote, or future, in an Application of which Faculty of the mind to a consideration of our own Existence and Nature, together with the beauty and order of the Universe, so far as it falls under our view, we may come to the knowledge of a First Cause; and that this must be an Intelligent Being, Wise and Powerful, beyond what we are able to conceive.
I have long observed, my lords, how vain it is to argue against those whose resolutions are determined by extrinsick motives, and have been long acquainted with the art of disguising obstinacy, by an appearance of reasons that have no weight, even in the opinion of him by whom they are offered, and of raising clouds of objections, which, by the first reply, will certainly be dissipated, but which, at least, fill the mouth for a time, and preserve the disputant from the reproach of adhering to an opinion, in vindication of which he had nothing to say.
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