on
between two events, that absolute efficient agency, which was vainly
sought in the world of matter.

If these considerations are well founded, the whole framework of what
are called "secondary causes" falls to pieces. The laws of nature are
only a figure of speech; the powers and active inherent properties of
material atoms are mere fictions. Mind alone is active; matter is wholly
passive and inert. There is no such thing as what we usually call the
course of nature; it is nothing but the will of God producing certain
effects in a constant and uniform manner; which mode of action, however,
being perfectly arbitrary, is as easy to be altered at any time as to be
preserved. All events, all changes, in the external world, from the
least even unto the greatest, are attributable to his will and power,
which, being infinite, is always and necessarily adequate to the end
proposed. The laws of motion, gravitation, affinity, and the like, are
only expressions of the regularity and continuity of one infinite cause.
The order of nature is the effect of divine wisdom, its stability is the
result of divine beneficence.

"Estne Dei sedes nisi terra, et pontus, et aer,
Et coelum, et virtus? Superos quid quaerimus ultra?
Jupiter est quodcunque vides, quocunque moveris."

It may be asked, if divine power, instead of operating immediately
throughout the universe, might not have endowed material atoms at the
outset with certain properties and energies, the gradual evolution of
which in after ages would produce all the phenomena of nature, without
the necessity of his incessant presence, agency, and control. Certainly,
we may not put bounds to omnipotence; though we may assert of a given
hypothesis respecting its exercise, that it is inconceivable, or
involves wholly incongruous ideas. The necessary attributes of matter,
according to our conception of it, are extension, figure,
impenetrability, and inertness; the properties of mind are thought,
sensation, activity, and will. These attributes are essential, not
arbitrary or contingent; for they make up our whole idea of the
substances in which they inhere. We can no more suppose them to be
interchangeable, than we can literally attribute dimensions to an odor,
or capacity to a sound. To speak of an extended thought, an impenetrable
sensation, an inert activity, is to talk nonsense; it is equally absurd
to attribute thought to extension, sensation to figure, activity to
in