it is called the "will." Such is the nature of
spirit that it cannot be of itself perceived, but only by the effects
which it produceth.

The ideas of sense are more strong, lively, and distinct than those of
the imagination; they have likewise a steadiness, order, and coherence,
and are excited in a regular series, the admirable connection whereof
sufficiently testifies the wisdom and benevolence of its Author. The set
rules or established methods, wherein the mind that we depend on excites
in us the ideas of sense, are called the "laws of Nature."

These we learn by experience, and so obtain a sort of foresight which
enables us to regulate our actions for the benefit of life. In general,
to obtain such or such ends such or such means are conducive; and all
this we know, not by discovering any necessary connection between our
ideas, but only by the observation of the laws of Nature.

And yet this constant uniform working, which so evidently displays the
goodness and wisdom of that governing spirit whose will constitutes the
laws of Nature, is so far from leading our thoughts to Him that it
rather sends them wandering after second causes. For when we perceive
certain ideas of sense constantly followed by other ideas, and we know
that it is not of our own doing, we forthwith attribute power and agency
to the ideas themselves, and make one the cause of another, than which
nothing can be more absurd.

_II.--THE ROOTS OF SCEPTICISM_

Several difficult and obscure questions, on which abundance of
speculation hath been thrown away, are by our own principles entirely
banished from philosophy. "Whether corporeal substance can think,"
"whether matter be infinitely divisible," "how matter operates on
spirit"--these and the like inquiries have given infinfte amusement to
philosophers in all ages. But since they depend on the existence of
matter, they have no longer any place in our principles. It follows,
also, that human knowledge may be reduced to two heads--knowledge of
ideas, and knowledge of spirits. Our knowledge of the former hath been
much obscured and confounded, and we have been led into very dangerous
errors, by supposing a twofold existence of the objects of sense, the
one "intelligible," or in the mind, the other "real," and without the
mind; whereby unthinking things are thought to have a natural
subsistence of their own, distinct from being perceived by spirits.

This is the very root of scepticism; for s