or Manner of it can poffibly be affigned. And as the ftupidity of fome Libertines, that demand a fight of a Spirit or Humane Soul to convince them of its existence, hath been frequently and deservedly expofed; because whatsoever may be the object of our Sight, must not be a Soul or Spirit, but an opake Body fo this Atheist would tax us of the like Nonsense and Contradiction; if after he hath named to us Fortune or Chance, we should expect from him any particular and diftinct account of the Origin of Mankind. Becaufe it is the very effence and notion of his Chance, to be wholly unaccountable: and if an account could be given of it; it would then no longer be Chance but Mechanism, or a neceffary production of certain Effects from certain Causes according to the Univerfal Laws of Motion. Thus we are to know, that if once we admit of Fortune in the Formation of Mankind; there is no further enquiry to be made, no more Difficulties to be folved, and no Account to be demanded. And who then can admire, if the inviting casiness and compendiousness of this Affertion fhould fo dazle the Eyes of our Atheift, that he overlooks those grofs Abfurdities, that are so confpicuous in it?

(1) For firft, if this Atheist would have his Chance or Fortune to be a real and fubftantial A gent; as the Vulgar feem to have commonly ap prehended,

prehended, some making it a Divinity, others they do not conceive what he is doubly more ftupid and more fupinely ignorant than those Vulgar; in that he affumes fuch a notion of Fortune, as befides its being erroneous, is inconfiftent with his Atheism. For fince according to the Atheists, the whole Univerfe is Corpus inane, Body and nothing else: this Chance, if it do really and phyfically effect any thing, muft it self be Body alfo. And what a nu.

merous train of Abfurdities do attend fuch an af sertion? too visible and obvious to deserve to be here infifted on. For indeed it is no less than flat contradiction to it self. For if this Chance be supposed to be a Body; it must then be a part of the common Mass of Matter: and confequently be fubject to the univerfal and neceffary Laws of Motion: and therefore it cannot be Chance, but true Mechanism and Nature.

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(2) But fecondly, if he forbear to call Chance a real Agent, and is content to have it only a Refult or Event; fince all Matter or some portion of may be naturally exempt from these supposed Mechanical Laws, and be endowed with a power of spontaneous or fortuitous Motion; which power, when it is exerted, muft produce an Effect properly Casual, and therefore might conftitute the first Animate Bodies accidentally, against the supposed

natural

natural tendency of the Particles of those Bodies: even this second Affertion is contrary to common Senfe, as well as common Obfervation. For how can he conceive, that any parcel of dead Matter can fpontaneonfly divert and decline it felf from the line of its motion without a new impulse from external Bodies? If it can intrinfically ftir it felf, and either commence its Motion or alter its course; it must have a principle of felf-activity, which is Life and Senfe. But Senfe I have proved formerly to Serm. 2. be incompatible with mere Bodies, even those of the most compound and elaborate textures; much more with fingle Atoms or folid Particles of Matter, that having no inteftine motion of Parts are deftitute of the first foundation and capacity of Life. And moreover, though these Particles fhould be supposed to have this internal principle of Sense, it would ftill be repugnant to the notion of Chance: because their Motions would not then be Casual, but Voluntary; not by Chance, but Choice and Defign. And Again, we appeal to Obfervation, whether any Bodies have fuch a power of Fortuitous Motion: we should furely have experiment of it in the effects of Nature and Art: No Body would retain the same constant and uniform Weight according to its Bulk and Substance; but would vary perpetually, as that spontaneous power of Motion

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fhould

fhould determin its present tendency. All the va rious Machins and Utenfils would now and then play odd Pranks and Capricio's quite contrary to their proper Structures and Designs of the Artificers. Whereas on the contrary all Bodies are observed to have always a certain and determinate Motion according to the degrees of their External Impulse, and their inward Principle of Gravitation, and the Resistance of the Bodies they occurr with: which therefore is without Error exactly foreseen and computed by fagacious Artists. And if ever Dead Matter fhould deviate from this Motion; it could not proceed from it self, but a fupernatural Agent; and ought not to be called a Chance, but a Miracle.

For Chance is but a mere name, and really Nothing in it felf: a Conception of our own Minds, and only a Compendious way of speaking, whereby we would exprefs, That fuch Effects, as are commonly attributed to Chance, were verily produced by their true and proper Causes, but without their defigning to produce them. And in any Event called Casual, if you take away the real and phyfical Causes, there remains nothing, but a fimple Negation of the Agents intending fuch an Event: which Negation being no real Entity, but a Conception only of Man's Intellect wholly extrinfecal to the Action, can have no title to a fhare

περὶ τύχης.

in the production. As in that famous Example (which Plutarch fays, is the only one, where For- Plutarch. tune is related to have done a thing artificially) when a Painter having finish'd the Picture of a Horse, excepting the loose Froth about his Mouth and his Bridle, and after many unsuccessfull effays despairing to do that to his fatisfaction, in a great rage threw his Spunge at it, all besmear'd, as it was, with the Colours; which fortunately hitting upon the right place, by one bold ftroke of Chance moft exactly supplied the want of Skill in the Artist: even here it is manifeft, that confidering the Quantity and Determination of the Motion, that was impreffed by the Painter's hand upon the Spunge, compounded with the fpecifick Gravity of the Spunge, and refiftance of the Air; the Spunge did mechani- ́ cally and unavoidably move in that particular line of Motion, and so neceffarily hit upon that Part of the Picture; and all the paint, that it left there, was as certainly placed by true natural Causes, as any one ftroke of the Pencil in the whole Piece. So that this ftrange effect of the Spunge was fortuitous only with respect to the Painter, because he did not defign nor forfee fuch an effect; but in it felf and as to its real Causes it was neceffary and natural. In a word, the true notion of Fortune (s Tuns) denoteth no more, than the Ignorance of fuch an T 2

event