s reader will collect the sense from the scope and tenor
and connexion of a discourse, making allowances for those inaccurate
modes of speech which use has made inevitable.

53. As to the OPINION THAT THERE ARE NO CORPOREAL CAUSES, this has been
heretofore maintained by some of the Schoolmen, as it is of late by
others among the modern philosophers, who though they allow Matter to
exist, yet will have God alone to be the immediate efficient cause of all
things. These men saw that amongst all the objects of sense there was
none which had any power or activity included in it; and that by
consequence this was likewise true of whatever bodies they supposed to
exist without the mind, like unto the immediate objects of sense. But
then, that they should suppose an innumerable multitude of created
beings, which they acknowledge are not capable of producing any one
effect in nature, and which therefore are made to no manner of purpose,
since God might have done everything as well without them: this I say,
though we should allow it possible, must yet be a very unaccountable and
extravagant supposition.

54. EIGHTH OBJECTION.--TWOFOLD ANSWER.--In the eighth place, the
universal concurrent assent of mankind may be thought by some
an invincible argument in behalf of Matter, or the existence of
external things. Must we suppose the whole world to be mistaken?
And if so, what cause can be assigned of so widespread and predominant
an error? I answer, FIRST, that, upon a narrow inquiry, it will
not perhaps be found so many as is imagined do really believe the
existence of Matter or things without the mind. Strictly speaking, to
believe that which involves a contradiction, or has no meaning in it, is
impossible; and whether the foregoing expressions are not of that sort, I
refer it to the impartial examination of the reader. In one sense,
indeed, men may be said to believe that Matter exists, that is, they ACT
as if the immediate cause of their sensations, which affects them every
moment, and is so nearly present to them, were some senseless unthinking
being. But, that they should clearly apprehend any meaning marked by
those words, and form thereof a settled SPECULATIVE opinion, is what I am
not able to conceive. This is not the only instance wherein men impose
upon themselves, by imagining they believe those propositions which they
have often heard, though at bottom they have no meaning in them.

55. But SECONDLY, though we should gra