God as Cause, Goodness and Order.]

Sect. 140. To return again to the instructive example of Bishop
Berkeley, we find him proving God from the evidence of him in
experience, or the need of him to support the claims of experience.

"But, whatever power I may have over my own thoughts, I find
the ideas actually perceived by Sense have not a like
dependence on _my_ will. When in broad daylight I open my
eyes, it is not in my power to choose whether I shall see or
no, or to determine what particular objects shall present
themselves to my view: and so likewise as to the hearing and
other senses; the ideas imprinted on them are not creatures of
_my_ will. There is therefore some other Will or Spirit that
produces them.

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 not excited at random, as those
which are the effects of human wills often are, but in a
regular train or series--the admirable connection whereof
sufficiently testifies the wisdom and benevolence of its
Author. Now the set rules, or established methods, wherein the
Mind we depend on excites in us the ideas of Sense, are called
_the laws of nature_."[294:18]

Of the attributes of experience here in question, independence or
"steadiness" is not regarded as _prima facie_ evidence of spirit, but
rather as an aspect of experience for which some cause is necessary. But
it is assumed that the power to "produce," with which such a cause must
be endowed, is the peculiar prerogative of spirit, and that this cause
gives further evidence of its spiritual nature, of its eminently
spiritual nature, in the orderliness and the goodness of its effects.

"The force that produces, the intellect that orders, the
goodness that perfects all things is the Supreme
Being."[294:19]

That spirit is possessed of causal efficacy, Berkeley has in an earlier
passage proved by a direct appeal to the individual's sense of power.

"I find I can excite ideas in my mind at pleasure, and vary
and shift the scene as oft as I think fit. It is no more than
_willing_, and straightway this or that idea arises in my
fancy; and by the same power it is obliterated and makes way
for another. This making and unmaking of ideas doth very
properly denominate the mind a