A Being whose spirituality, omnipresence, providence, omniscience, infinite power and goodness, are as conspicuous as the existence of sensible things, of which (notwithstanding the fallacious pretences and affected scruples of Sceptics) there is no more reason to doubt than of our own being.—­Then, with relation to human sciences.  In Natural Philosophy, what intricacies, what obscurities, what contradictions hath the belief of Matter led men into!  To say nothing of the numberless disputes about its extent, continuity, homogeneity, gravity, divisibility, &c.—­do they not pretend to explain all things by bodies operating on bodies, according to the laws of motion? and yet, are they able to comprehend how one body should move another?  Nay, admitting there was no difficulty in reconciling the notion of an inert being with a cause, or in conceiving how an accident might pass from one body to another; yet, by all their strained thoughts and extravagant suppositions, have they been able to reach the mechanical production of any one animal or vegetable body?  Can they account, by the laws of motion, for sounds, tastes, smells, or colours; or for the regular course of things?  Have they accounted, by physical principles, for the aptitude and contrivance even of the most inconsiderable parts of the universe?  But, laying aside Matter and corporeal, causes, and admitting only the efficiency of an All-perfect Mind, are not all the effects of nature easy and intelligible?  If the phenomena are nothing else but ideas; God is a spirit, but Matter an unintelligent, unperceiving being.  If they demonstrate an unlimited power in their cause; God is active and omnipotent, but Matter an inert mass.  If the order, regularity, and usefulness of them can never be sufficiently admired; God is infinitely wise and provident, but Matter destitute of all contrivance and design.  These surely are great advantages in physics.  Not to mention that the apprehension of a distant Deity naturally disposes men to a negligence in their moral actions; which they would be more cautious of, in case they thought Him immediately present, and acting on their minds, without the interposition of Matter, or unthinking second causes.—­Then in metaphysics:  what difficulties concerning entity in abstract, substantial forms, hylarchic principles, plastic natures, substance and accident, principle of individuation, possibility of Matter’s thinking, origin of ideas, the manner how two independent substances so widely different as spirit and matter, should mutually operate on each other? what difficulties, I say, and endless disquisitions, concerning these and innumerable other the like points, do we escape, by supposing only Spirits and ideas?—­Even the mathematics themselves, if we take away the absolute existence of extended things, become much more clear and easy; the most shocking paradoxes and intricate speculations in those sciences depending on the. infinite divisibility