David Hume

1711–1776

The world plainly resembles more an animal or a vegetable, than it does a watch or a knitting-loom. Its cause, therefore, it is more probable, resembles the cause of the former. The cause of the former is generation or vegetation. The cause, therefore, of the world, we may infer to be something similar or analogous to generation or vegetation.

Source details
1779 · Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, Part VII (Philo)

Checked word-for-word against Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion · 2026-07-18

See the printed page this was transcribed from →