Page:An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding - Hume (1748).djvu/128

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
116
ESSAY VII.

times apply the same Inferences to the Mind itself, in its internal Operations. Our mental Vision or Conception of Ideas is nothing but a Revelation made to us by our Maker. When we voluntarily turn our Thoughts to any Object, and raise up its Image in the Fancy; it is not the Will, which creates that Idea: 'Tis the universal Creator of all Things, who discovers it to the Mind, and renders it present to us.

Thus, according to these Philosophers, every Thing is full of God. Not contented with the Principle, that nothing exists but by his Will, that nothing possesses any Power but by his Concession: They rob Nature, and all created Beings of every Power, in order to render their Dependance on the Deity still more sensible and immediate. They consider not, that by this Theory they diminish, instead of magnifying, the Grandeur of those Attributes, which they affect so much to celebrate. It argues surely more Power in the Deity to delegate a certain Degree of Power to his inferior Creatures than to operate every Thing by his immediate Volition. It argues more Wisdom to contrive at first the Fabric of the World with such perfect Foresight, that, of itself, and by its own proper Operation, it may serve all the Purposes of Providence, than if the great Creator were oblig'd every Moment to adjust its Parts, and animate by his Breath all the Wheels of that stupendous Machine.

But