Suppose they should proceed to inquire concerning the constitution of nature. In a lax way of speaking, one of them might say, it was by necessity; and the other, by freedom: but if they had any meaning to their words, as the latter must mean a free agent, so the former must at length be reduced to mean an agent, whether he would say one or more, acting by necessity: for abstract notions can do nothing. We indeed ascribe to God a necessary existence, uncaused by any agent. For we find within ourselves the idea of infinity, _i.e._ immensity and eternity, impossible, even in imagination, to be removed out of being. We seem to discern intuitively, that there must, and cannot but be, something, external to ourselves, answering this idea, or the archetype of it. Hence, (for _this abstract_, as much as any other, implies a _concrete_) we conclude, that there is, and cannot but be, an infinite and immense eternal being, existing prior to all design contributing to his existence, and exclusive of it. From the scantiness of language, a manner of speaking has been introduced; that necessity is the foundation, the reason, the account of the existence of God. But it is not alleged, nor can it be at all intended, that _every thing_ exists as it does, by this kind of necessity: a necessity antecedent in nature to design: it cannot, I say, be meant that every thing exists as it does, by this kind of necessity, upon several accounts; and particularly because it is admitted, that design, in the actions of men, contributes to many alterations in nature. If any deny this, I shall not pretend to reason with them. From these things it follows; _First_, That when a fatalist asserts, that every thing is _by necessity_, he must mean, _by an agent acting necessarily_; he _must_, I say, mean this, for I am very sensible he would not choose to mean it. _Secondly_, That the necessity, by which such an agent is supposed to act, does not exclude intelligence and design. So that, were the system of fatality admitted, it would just as much account for the formation of the world, as for the structure of a house, and no more. Necessity as much requires and supposes a necessary agent, as freedom requires and supposes a free agent, to be the former of the world. And the appearances of _design_ and of _final causes_ in the constitution of nature as really prove this acting agent to be an _intelligent designer_, or to act from choice; upon the scheme of necessity, supposed possible, as upon that of freedom.