the other senses: As for example, (1.) Metaphysical; so a thinking substance is the whole definition of a spirit; substance is the genus, and thinking the difference. (2.) Physical or essential; so a spirit is a whole, and perception, judgment, reason, and will, may be called its essential parts or powers, without excluding immateriality and immortality, as its properties. (3.) Integral; so we say a whole army of angels, a whole heaven of blessed spirits. (4.) Universal or logical; so a spirit is a genus or generic whole, human souls and angels are the species, or special parts. As for man, who is a compound being made up of body and soul, I think he may be called as properly an inte gral whole, and then we leave the term essential whole to signify only a substance with all its essential properties.

Query, When we say, one of Tully's orations is made up of happy thoughts, just reasonings, warm persuasives, beautiful transitions, pure language, and well-sounding periods, are these integral or essential parts, and how is the whole to be denominated? But let us proceed.

Parts are either homogeneous, i. e. of the same kind, as branches are parts of a tree; or heterogeneous, i. e. of different kinds, as the several limbs and bowels are parts of an animal. And even homogeneous parts may be similar or dissimilar in several circumstances, as the branches of a tree may be fruitful or unfruitful, long or short, vigorous or withering.

Note 1. That which is a whole in one sense, may be a part in another. This whole globe of earth is a part of the universe. 2. The whole is bigger than each part taken separately, and equal to all the parts taken conjunctly.

3. The part of a part is also a part of the whole. A finger is a part of the body, because it is a part of the hand.

CHAP. X.-Of Principles, Causes and Effects.

A PRINCIPLE may be with sufficient propriety distinguished from a cause, as a general nature from one special kind. Principles are any sort of springs whatsoever, either of essence or existence, of knowledge, or of operation.

1. Principles of essence or existence are either (1.) Continent, as herbs, minerals, metals are principles of medicines; for they contain in them the juices, oils, spirits and salts, and medicinal extracts, which are drawn from them by the chymists. Or, (2.) Principles are constituent, as compound medicines are made of several simples, as their principles; or as matter and form are the constituent principles of particular bodies; or as stone and timber of a house, or as any parts of a thing are constituents of the whole. Or, (3.) Principles are causal, such are all the tribes of causes to be mentioned hereafter.

II. Principles of knowledge are either internal as perception,

reason; or external as objects, books. Both these are either natural, as sense, sensible things; or supernatural, as visions, inspirations. Again, Principles of knowledge are more simple, as ideas, or words, or letters; or they are more complex, as propositions, and particularly such as are self-evident, as axioms, or such as contain the chief truths or rules of any doctrine, art or science.

III. Principles of operation may sometimes include the beings themselves, which operate as writers, warriors, &c. as well as their natural powers, viz. hands, strength, skill, &c. and their moral powers, viz. law, authority, &c. And supernatural principles, viz. revelation and divine influences.

Almost all principles, except the constituent and continent, may be reduced to some or other of the kinds of causes.

A cause in general is a principle distinct from the thing itself, and hath some real and proper influence on the existence of that thing. An effect is that which is produced, done or obtained by the influence of some other being, which is called the

cause.

1. Note, No being can properly be the cause of itself: Yet a fountain may be the cause of a river, though the water in both may be the same materially, but not formally; for a fountain springs out of the earth, a river runs along on the earth, between a length of banks.

2. Every being, besides the first being, wants a cause: God the first being, is self-existent or independent, and has no cause: He exists from a necessity of nature and self-sufficience, yet not properly as the cause of his own being; but all other real beings are derived from him as from their cause.

3. The same thing in different respects may be both a cause and an effect. Clouds and vapours are the effects of the sun, but the cause of rain.

4. A cause is in order of nature before its effect, but not always in time. For a fire gives heat, and a star gives light as soon as they exist.

Causes in general may be divided many ways.

1. Into universal and particular: The sun, earth, rain, are all universal causes of plants, herbs and flowers; for by the same sort of influences each of them produce various and different effects: But the particular seeds are the particular causes of each different herb and flower. Common and proper causes are very near a-kin to the former distinction.

2. Causes may be divided into remote and proxime; as an infectious air or east wind may be the remote cause of the death of men; but the several discases arising thence are the proxime causes. A father is the proxime cause of his son, a grandfather the remote cause.

3. Causes are univocal, as when a lion produces a young lion; when a fountain of water sends forth a stream of water; or when money being lent, gains money by interest; but they are equivocal when a man writes a book, when a root produces a stalk and leaves, or when money buys land. In the three first the effect is of the same nature with the cause; in the three last it is different.

4. Again, Causes are sole or solitary, as when a horse alone eats a gallon of corn; or social, when a hen and chickens share it among them. So a pestilence is a solitary cause when it des troys a city; but when an army made up of officers and soldiers conquer it, these are social causes.

Social causes are either co-ordinate as common soldiers fight a battle, or subordinate, as the several degrees of officers, viz. colonels, captains, lieutenants, and the common soldiers, under them. Among subordinate causes we sometimes consider the first, the last and the intermediate; whether one or more.

Note, In causes acting by a necessary subordination the cause of a cause may be justly deemed the cause of the effect. The man who throws in the firebrand, which kindles the gunpowder, which blows up a ship, is the cause of the death of the sailors.

Note, In subordinate causes you must at last come to a first cause, for there is no infinite or endless subordination of

causes.

Query, If a round chain of many links were used to bind à vessel of liquor instead of a hoop, is not each link subordinate to its neighbour in their influence? And which of all these is the first cause? Ans. These are all co-ordinate and not subordinate causes; though they are dependent, yet it is on each other mutually, and they are all equally dependent.

5. Yet further, causes in general may be divided into total and partial. An absolutely total cause is much the same as a sole cause: But a cause may be total in its own kind, though many other causes concur to produce the effect. Alexander the king, Apelles the painter, his idea, his hand, and his pencil, are each a total cause of Alexander's picture, for each of these is single and alone in their distinct influences: But the several colours are partial causes, for they have all the same influence: and so are the fingers of the painter, for they all join their service in guiding his pencil.

6. Causes are also distinguished into physical, which work by natural influence; and moral, which work by persuasion.

7. A cause is called ordinary, when it works according to the usual course of nature, as when animals produce their own kind: It is extraordinary or miraculous, as when the rod of Moses produced swarms of lice in Egypt.

After all these distinctions of causes in general, let us now come to distribute causes into their chief particular kinds. Instead of dividing them into those common branches of material and formal, efficient and final, it may be much more proper to leave out matter and form, as not being properly causes, and then we may distribute the rest into four kinds, viz. Emanative, efficient, instructive, and suasive: and as I think none of these are included properly in each other, so these include all the various ideas of positive proper causes in the most natural and easy view and order.

I. An emanative cause is, when the effect flows from it without any action to produce it, supposing only that all obstructions be removed. So water flows from a spring, so heat from the fire, or a fragrant scent from spices. This might perhaps be reduced to the rank of continent principles whence any thing proceeds, though it much better deserves the name of a cause than matter and form, which are only constituents, and are the effect itself. It belongs chiefly to natural and necessary causes to have the title of emanative. Sometimes the effect is co-eval with the emanative cause, as light and heat flowing from the sun, or a sweet smell from a violet. Sometimes the cause is prior to the effect, as when a plant springs from the seed, or leaves and fruit from a tree, or a long river from a distant fountain.

Query, Whether some of those which are usually called emanative causes, because their agency is more insensible and unnoticed, be not as properly ranked among the efficient causes? Such as, the sun in emitting its rays, which give both light and heat, and produce innumerable effects throughout the earth and all the planetary worlds? Is it a mere emanative cause of light and heat? Ans. This may be debated in physiology if it be worth a debate.

II. An efficient cause most properly deserves the name of a cause, because it produces the effect by some sort of active power or natural agency; as when an archer bends his bow, or when the bow gives flight to an arrow, or when an arrow strikes the mark. All these three are distinct efficient causes with their distinct effects. Efficient causes have many divisions.

1. Efficient causes are either first or second. The first cause is either absolutely so, which is God alone, and all creatures are but second causes: Or it is first in its own kind; so a gardener is the first cause of the growth of trees in the garden which he hath planted; all his under agents, whether diggers, waterers or weeders, are second causes.

2. The next division near a-kin to the former is when efficient causes are distinguished into principal, less principal, and instrumental. The principal cause of building a house is the architect; the less principal are adjuvant or assistant causes,

such are bricklayers, carpenters, labourers, &c. the instrumental causes are hammers, axes, trowels, &c.

3. Efficient internal causes are distinguished from external: when the inward huinours of the body produce pain or death, it is different from the case when outward wounds and bruises produce the same effects.

4. Efficient causes may be exciting and disposing, as when hunger excites a horse to eat, or a farmer holds bay to his mouth: But when a farrier constrains him to take a drench, this is a compelling and constraining cause.

5. A cause is forced, as when a man driven by robbers runs in at his neighbour's window by night for shelter or it is free, as when a robber breaks into the house to plunder it.

6. Yet further, efficient causes may be necessary, as when the sea drowns a child who falls into it; or contingent, as when a tile falls from a house and kills a child; whereas it might only have wounded him, or perhaps not hurt him, or never touched

him.

7. Again, Causes may be accidental, as when a boy throws a stone at a bird and breaks a window: But when he doth mischief on purpose, the cause is designing, and the effect is designed. When a groom leads a lame horse to water, the groom is the designing cause of the horse's walking, but he is only the accidental cause of his halting. The famous pair of causes which in the schools is called Causa per accidens and Causa per se, may be applied to these two or three last distinctions of efficient

8. Again efficient causes may be either procuring or confirming, preventing or removing. So medicines confirm or procure health, and prevent or remove diseases.

9. Efficient causes may be creative, conservative, alterative, or destructive. The very names of these describe them sufficiently.

Note, Here might be introduced that famous axiom of the schools, that every cause contains its effect, or that there is nothing in the effect which was not in the cause: but this must not be understood always formally, as a fountain contains water, but sometimes, only eminently, i. e. as the root of a tree contains leaves and fruit, because it can produce them; and indeed when we search this axiom to the bottom, it means nothing more than that every cause can produce its effect, which is a very dilute and

* I know accidental and contingent causes are much the same; but I thought it more proper here to multiply the divisions of cause than to crowd all these causes, (viz.) forced, free, designing, contingent, and necessary into one division, because some of them have two or three opposites, and have their ideas a little distinct, which best appears in distinct pairs. See more in the chap. of Act and Power, Necessity and Freedom.