Page:A Philosophical Inquiry Concerning Human Liberty (3rd ed., 1735).djvu/92

 In answer to which, I grant that if the period of human life be fix’d (as I contend it is) it cannot but happen at the time fix’d, and nothing can fall out to prolong or shorten that period. Neither such want of care, nor such violence offer’d, nor such diseases can happen as can cause the period of human life to fall short of that time; nor such care, nor physick be us’d, as to prolong it beyond that time. But tho’ these cannot so fall out, as to shorten or prolong the period of human life; yet being necessary causes in the chain of causes to bring human life to the period fix’d, or to cause it not to exceed that time, they must as necessarily precede that effect, as other causes do their proper effects; and consequently when us’d or neglected, serve all the ends and purposes, that can be hop’d for or fear’d from the use of any means, or the neglect of any means whatsoever: For example, let it be fix’d and necessary for the river Nile annually to overflow; the means to cause it to overflow, must no less necessarily precede. And as it would be absurd to argue that if the overflowing of the Nile was annually fix’d