able backwardness that I find in myself
towards your notions.

PHIL. When a man is swayed, he knows not why, to one side of' the
question, can this, think you, be anything else but the effect of
prejudice, which never fails to attend old and rooted notions? And
indeed in this respect I cannot deny the belief of Matter to have very
much the advantage over the contrary opinion, with men of a learned,
education.

HYL. I confess it seems to be as you say.

PHIL. As a balance, therefore, to this weight of prejudice, let us
throw into the scale the great advantages that arise from the belief of
Immaterialism, both in regard to religion and human learning. The being
of a God, and incorruptibility of the soul, those great articles of
religion, are they not proved with the clearest and most immediate
evidence? When I say the being of a God, I do not mean an obscure general
Cause of things, whereof we have no conception, but God, in the strict
and proper sense of the word. A Being whose spirituality, omnipresence,
providence, omniscience, infinite power and goodness, are as conspicuous
as the existence of sensible things, of which (notwithstanding the
fallacious pretences and affected scruples of Sceptics) there is no more
reason to doubt than of our own being.--Then, with relation to human
sciences. In Natural Philosophy, what intricacies, what obscurities, what
contradictions hath the belief of Matter led men into! To say nothing of
the numberless disputes about its extent, continuity, homogeneity,
gravity, divisibility, &c.--do they not pretend to explain all things by
bodies operating on bodies, according to the laws of motion? and yet, are
they able to comprehend how one body should move another? Nay, admitting
there was no difficulty in reconciling the notion of an inert being with
a cause, or in conceiving how an accident might pass from one body to
another; yet, by all their strained thoughts and extravagant
suppositions, have they been able to reach the MECHANICAL production of
any one animal or vegetable body? Can they account, by the laws of
motion, for sounds, tastes, smells, or colours; or for the regular course
of things? Have they accounted, by physical principles, for the aptitude
and contrivance even of the most inconsiderable parts of the universe?
But, laying aside Matter and corporeal, causes, and admitting only the
efficiency of an All-perfect Mind, are not all the effects of nature easy
and intelligibl