ifficulties;
for, it may still be demanded to what end God should take those
roundabout methods of effecting things by instruments and machines, which
no one can deny might have been effected by the mere command of His will
without all that apparatus; nay, if we narrowly consider it, we shall
find the objection may be retorted with greater force on those who hold
the existence of those machines without of mind; for it has been made
evident that solidity, bulk, figure, motion, and the like have no
activity or efficacy in them, so as to be capable of producing any one
effect in nature. See sect. 25. Whoever therefore supposes them to exist
(allowing the supposition possible) when they are not perceived does it
manifestly to no purpose; since the only use that is assigned to them, as
they exist unperceived, is that they produce those perceivable effects
which in truth cannot be ascribed to anything but Spirit.

62. (FOURTHLY.)--But, to come nigher the difficulty, it must be observed
that though the fabrication of all those parts and organs be not
absolutely necessary to the producing any effect, yet it is necessary
to the producing of things in a constant regular way according to
the laws of nature. There are certain general laws that run through
the whole chain of natural effects; these are learned by the observation
and study of nature, and are by men applied as well to the framing
artificial things for the use and ornament of life as to the
explaining various phenomena--which explication consists only in
showing the conformity any particular phenomenon has to the general
laws of nature, or, which is the same thing, in discovering the
uniformity there is in the production of natural effects; as will
be evident to whoever shall attend to the several instances wherein
philosophers pretend to account for appearances. That there is a
great and conspicuous use in these regular constant methods of
working observed by the Supreme Agent has been shown in sect. 31.
And it is no less visible that a particular size, figure, motion,
and disposition of parts are necessary, though not absolutely to
the producing any effect, yet to the producing it according to the
standing mechanical laws of nature. Thus, for instance, it cannot be
denied that God, or the Intelligence that sustains and rules the ordinary
course of things, might if He were minded to produce a miracle, cause all
the motions on the dial-plate of a watch, though nobody ha