must be utterly rejected as a means of accounting either
for the creation or government of the world. For, on the supposition of
a Supreme Being, there can be no _chance_ with reference to Him; and
without such a supposition, we cannot account for the regularity which
prevails in the course of Nature, and which indicates a presiding
Intelligence and a controlling Will. . 2. But this very regularity of
Nature, when viewed apart from the cross accidents of life, is apt to
engender the opposite idea of "Fate" or "Destiny," as if all events were
determined by laws alike necessary and invariable, inherent in the
constitution of Nature, and independent of the concurrence or the
control of the Divine will. We are not sure, indeed, that the idea of
Fate or Destiny is suggested solely, or even mainly, by the regular
sequences of the natural world; we rather think that it is more
frequently derived from those unexpected and crushing calamities which
occur in spite of every precaution of human foresight and prudence, and
that thus it may be identified, in a great measure, with the doctrine of
Chance, or, at least, the one may run into and blend with the other. But
if any attempt were made to establish it by proof, recourse would be had
to the established order and regular sequences of Nature, as affording
its most plausible verification, although they afford no real sanction
to it, in so far as it differs from the Christian doctrine of
Providence.

Dr. Cudworth discusses this subject at great length, and makes mention
of _three_ distinct forms of Fatalism. The first, which is variously
designated as the Democritic, the Physiological, or the Atheistic Fate,
is that which teaches the material or physical necessity of all things,
and ascribes all natural phenomena to the mechanical laws of matter and
motion. The second, which is described as a species of Divine or
Theistic Fate, is that which admits the existence and agency of God, but
teaches that He both _decrees_ and _does_, _purposes_ and _performs_ all
things, whether good or evil, as if He were the only real agent in the
universe, or as if He had no moral character, and were, as Cudworth
graphically expresses it, "_mere arbitrary will omnipotent_:" this he
describes as a "Divine Fate immoral and violent." The third, which is
also designated as a species of Divine or Theistic Fate, is that which
recognizes both the existence of God, and the agency of other beings in
Nature, toge