2021/03/03 by Grégory Claeys · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · #Classical Philosophy and Thought
paper · doi:10.4324/9781003113157-40
openalex publication_date 2021/03/03 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Upon all subjects connected with universal causes, effects, and operations, the human faculties have been hitherto unable to acquire knowledge of facts, as can give any satisfactory results to their most extended investigations. From facts which no experienced and unprejudiced mind will deny, it appears to our senses, that there is an unceasing composition, decomposition, and recomposition, always in progress upon the earth; and we naturally infer that a similar process obtains throughout the universe. From the past history of the human race, from the present condition of man over the world, it is evident ‘that the facts are yet unknown to man which define what that Incomprehensible Power is,’ which is the primary cause of all motion, life, mind, and their consequences, throughout the universe. All who possess powers of reflection, admit that the Power which acts throughout the universe is to them incomprehensible, – they know not its form, or mode of existence, or means of action.