tself, and how can it give what it has not? Let us even suppose
that thought should result from a certain configuration, ranging,
and degree of motion a certain way, of all the parts of matter:
what artificer has had the skill to find out all those just, nice,
and exact combinations, in order to make a thinking machine? If, on
the contrary, the mind and body are two distinct natures, what power
superior to those two natures has been able to unite and tie
together without the mind's assent, or so much as its knowing which
way that union was made? Who is it that with such absolute and
supreme command over-rules both minds and bodies, and keeps them in
society and correspondence, and under a sort of incomprehensible
policy?

SECT. XLVI. The Soul has an Absolute Command over the Body.

Be pleased to observe that the command of my mind over my body is
supreme and absolute in its bounded extent, since my single will,
without any effort or preparation, causes all the members of my body
to move on a sudden and immediately, according to the rules of
mechanics. As the Scripture gives us the character of God, who said
after the creation of the universe, "Let there be light, and there
was light"--in like manner, the inward word of my soul alone,
without any effort or preparation, makes what it says. I say, for
instance, within myself, through that inward, simple, and
momentaneous word, "Let my body move, and it moves." At the command
of that simple and intimate will, all the parts of my body are at
work. Immediately all nerves are distended, all the springs hasten
to concur together, and the whole machine obeys, just as if every
one of the most secret of those organs heard a supreme and
omnipotent voice. This is certainly the most simple and most
effectual power that can be conceived. All the other beings within
our knowledge afford not the like instance of it, and this is
precisely what men that are sensible and persuaded of a Deity
ascribe to it in all the universe.

Shall I ascribe it to my feeble mind, or rather to the power it has
over my body, which is so vastly different from it? Shall I believe
that my will has that supreme command of its own nature, though in
itself so weak and imperfect? But how comes it to pass that, among
so many bodies, it has that power over no more than one? For no
other body moves according to its desires. Now, who is it that gave
over one body the power it had over no other?