Page:Whole works of joseph butler.djvu/333

302 evident this necessity, being not limited to any antecedent subject, as angles are to a triangle, but being itself original, absolute, and (in order of nature) antecedent to all existence, cannot but be everywhere, for the same reason that it is anywhere. By applying this reasoning to the instance of space, you will find, that by consequence it belongs truly to that substance, whereof space is a property, as duration also is. What you say about a necessary being existing somewhere, supposes it to be finite; and being finite, supposes some cause which determined that such a certain quantity of that being should exist, neither more nor less; and that cause must either be a voluntary cause; or else such a necessary cause, the quantity of whose power must be determined and limited by some other cause. But in original absolute necessity, antecedent (in order of nature) to the existence of anything, nothing of all this can have place; but the necessity is necessarily everywhere alike.

Concerning the second difficulty, I answer, That which exists necessarily, is needful to the existence of any other thing; not considered now as a cause, (for that indeed is begging the question,) but as a sine qua non; in the sense as space is necessary to everything, and nothing can possibly be conceived to exist, without thereby presupposing space: which, therefore, I apprehend to be a property or mode of the self-existent substance; and that, by being evidently necessary itself it proves that the substance, of which it is a mode, must also be necessary: necessary both in itself, and needful to the existence of anything else whatsoever. Extension, indeed, does not belong to thought, because thought is not a being; but there is need of extension to the existence of every being, to a being which has or has not thought, or any other quality whatsoever.

{{smaller|{{sc|London, November 28, 1713.}} {{nop}} {{smallrefs}}