I never asserted such an absurd thing as that things arise without a cause.
The simplest and most obvious cause which can there be assigned for any phenomena, is probably the true one.
Nothing exists without a cause, the original cause of this universe we call God.
We need only reflect on what has been prov'd at large, that we are never sensible of any connexion betwixt causes and effects, and that 'tis only by our experience of their constant conjunction, we can arrive at any knowledge of this relation.
Reasoning from the common course of nature, and without supposing any new interposition of the Supreme Cause, which ought always to be excluded from philosophy; what is incorruptible must also be ingenerable. The soul, therefore, if immortal, existed before our birth: And if the former existence noways concerned us, neither will the latter.
A CAUSE is an object precedent and contiguous to another, and so united with it that the idea of the one determines the mind to form the idea of the other, and the impression of the one to form a more lively idea of the other.
From causes which appear similar, we expect similar effects. This is the sum total of all our experimental conclusions.