III. Tertull. advers. Hermog. c. 4. BOOK more Gods than one. To an argument something of this nature Hermogenes in Tertullian replies, that matter would not lose the name or nature of matter because of its coeternity with God; neither could it be God merely on that account, unless it had other things that were agreeable to the nature of God as well as that. But I have already shewed that necessary existence implies other perfections going along with it; which is likewise thus proved by Tertullian in answer to Hermogenes. The reason of the imperfections which are to be seen in any creatures, is from hence, that they derive their beings from a higher cause, who creates them in what order he pleases; but that which hath its original from itself, must on that account want those imperfections which other creatures in the world have; and therefore if necessary existence be of the nature of matter, all other perfections must belong to it too: and so there can be no superiority and inferiority between God and matter, because on both sides there will be necessary existence. Divinitas gradum non habet, utpote unica: and so the eternal existence of matter is repugnant to the unity of God. Tertull. c. 7. 3. It is repugnant to the independency of God; for it makes God subject to matter, and not matter to God. For if God cannot produce any thing without preexistent matter, the matter is necessary to his action, and so God must depend on that which he can do nothing without; and so God's using matter is, as Tertullian speaks, ex necessitate mediocritatis suæ, to help him in the producIbid. c. 8. tion of things. Nemo non subjicitur ei cujus eget ut possit uti, as he goes on. Thus matter at last is crept above the Deity, that God can do nothing without its aid and concurrence; and so, as Tertullian sharply says, God is beholden to matter for every being known to the world; grande beneficium Deo contulit ut haberet hodie per quam Deus cognosceretur, et omnipotens vocaretur, nisi quod jam non omnipotens, si non et hoc potens ex nihilo omnia proferre. Thus we see how irreconcileable this hypothesis is with these attributes of God. 4. It is repugnant to the immensity of God. For either God did exist separate from this eternal matter, or was conjoined with it: if conjoined with it, then both made Orig. Phi- but one being, as Maximus or Origen argues; if separate loc. c. 24. from it, then there must be something between them, and so there will be three real improduced things. If it be answered that they are neither conjoined nor separate, but God is in matter as in his proper place, as the Stoics asserted, it is easily replied, that either then he is in a CHAP. part of matter, or the whole matter; if in a part only, he cannot be immense; if in the whole, as his adequate place, how could he then ever frame the world? For either he must then recede from that part in which he was, and contract himself into a narrower compass, that he might fashion that part of the world which he was about, or else he must likewise frame part of himself with that part of the world which he was then framing of; which consequence is unavoidable, on the stoical hypothesis of God's being corporeal, and confined to the world as his proper place. And so much for this second hypothesis concerning the origin of the universe, which supposeth the eternity of matter as coexisting with God. XI. I come now to that which makes most noise in the world, which is the atomical or Epicurean hypothesis; but will appear to be as irrational as either of the foregoing, as far as it concerns the giving an account of the origin of the universe. For otherwise supposing a Deity which produced the world, and put it into the order it is now in, and supremely governs all things in the world, that many of the phenomena of the universe are far more intelligibly explained by matter and motion than by substantial forms and real qualities, few free and unprejudiced minds do now scruple. But because these little particles of matter may give a tolerable account of many appearances of nature, that therefore there should be nothing else but matter and motion in the world, and that the origin of the universe should be from no wiser principle than the casual concourse of these atoms, is one of the evidences of the proneness of men's minds to be intoxicated with those opinions they are once in love with; when they are not content to allow an hypothesis its due place and subserviency to God and Providence, but think these atoms have no force at all in them, unless they can extrude a Deity quite out of the world; for it is most evident that it was not so much the truth, as the serviceableness of this hypothesis, which hath given it entertainment among men of atheistical spirits. Epicurus himself, in his Epistle to Pythocles, urgeth that as a considerable circumstance in his opinion, that he brought no God down upon the stage to put things in order, xaldeia qúois Diog. πρὸς ταῦτα μηδαμὴ προσαγέσθω, which his paraphrast Lucre- I. x. p. 290. tius hath thus rendered: Nequaquam nobis divinitus esse paratam Laer. Lucret. de III. Euseb. 1. xiv. c. 23. de Placitis Phil. l. i. c. 4. BOOK If this opinion then be true, the history of the creation quite falls to the ground; on which account we are obliged more particularly to consider the reason of it. The hypothesis then of Epicurus is, that before the world was brought into that form and order it is now in, there was an infinite empty space, in which were an innumerable company of solid particles, or atoms of different sizes and shapes, which by their weight were in continual motion; and that by the various occursions of these, all the bodies of the universe were framed into that order they now are in. Which is fully expressed by Dionysius in Eusebius, and very agreeably to the sense of Epicurus, in his Epistles to Herodotus and Pythocles, and to what Plutarch reports of the sense of Epicurus, though he names him not, (if at Plutarch. least that book be his, which Muretus denies.) The words of Dionysius are these, concerning the Epicureans, οἱ μὲν γὰρ ἀτόμες προσειπόντες ἄφθαρτά τινα καὶ σμικρότατα σώματα, πλῆθος ἀνάριθμα, καί τι χωρίον κενὸν, μέγεθος ἀπεριόρισον προβαλόμενοι, ταύτας δή φασι τὰς ἀτόμες ὡς ἔτυχεν ἐν τῷ κενῷ φερομένας, αὐτομάτως τε συμπιπτούσας ἀλλήλαις διὰ ῥύμην ἄτακτον καὶ συμπλεκομένας διὰ τὸ πολύσχημον, ἀλλήλων ἐπιλαμβάνεσθαι, καὶ ὕτω τόντε κόσμον, καὶ τὰ ἐν αὐτῷ, μᾶλλον δὲ κόσμος ἀπείρες ἀποτελεῖν. So that, according to this opinion, all the account we have of the origin of the world is from this general rendezvous of atoms in this infinite space; in which, after many encounters and facings about, they fell into their several troops, and made up that ordered battalia which now the world is the scheme of. It was not imprudently done of Epicurus to make the worlds infinite, as well as his space and atoms; for by the same reason that his atoms would make one world, they might make a thousand; and who would spare for worlds, when he might make them so easily? Lucretius gives us in so exact an account of the several courses the atoms took up in disposing themselves into bodies, as though he had been muster-master general at the rendezvous; for thus he speaks of his atoms. Muret. Annot. in Senec. de Provid. Lucret. 1. i. V. 1023. Id. 1. v. v. 423. Quæ quia multimodis, multis, mutata per omne Omne genus motus et cœtus experiundo, And more particularly afterwards; Sed quia multa modis multis primordia rerum Ponderibusque suis consuerunt concita ferri, CHAP. Thus we see the substance of the Epicurean hypothesis, that there was an infinite number of atoms, which by their frequent occursions did at last meet with those of the same nature with them, and these being conjoined together, made up those bodies which we see; so that all the account we are able to give, according to this hypothesis, of all the phenomena of the universe, is from the fortuitous concourse of the atoms in the first forming of the world, and the different contexture of them in bodies. And this was delivered by the ancient Epicureans, not with any doubt or hesitation, but with the greatest confidence imaginable. So Tully observes of Velleius the Epicurean, beginning his discourse, fidenter sane ut solent Cicero de isti, nihil tam verens quam ne dubitare de aliqua re vide- Nat. Deor. retur; tanquam modo ex Deorum concilio, et ex Epicuri intermundiis descendisset: confidence was the peculiar genius of that sect, which we shall see in them to be accompanied with very little reason. For those two things which make any principles in philosophy to be rejected, this atomical hypothesis is unavoidably charged with; and those are, If the principles be taken up without sufficient ground in reason for them; and if they cannot give any sufficient account of the phenomena of the world. I shall therefore make it appear, that this hypothesis, as to the origin of the universe, is, first, merely precarious, and built on no sufficient grounds of reason; secondly, that it cannot give any satisfactory account of the origin of things. 1. That it is a precarious hypothesis, and hath no evidence of reason on which it should be taken up; and that will be proved by two things. 1. It is such an hypothesis as the Epicureans themselves could have no certainty of, according to their own principles. 2. That the main principles of the hypothesis itself are repugnant to those catholic laws of nature which are observed in the universe. .1. i. 1. The Epicureans, according to their own principles, could have no certainty of the truth of this hypothesis. And that, 1. Because they could have no certain evidence of XII. り BOOK its truth. 2. Because their way of proving it was insuf III. ficient. 1. That they could have no certain evidence of the truth of it, I prove from those criteria, which Epicurus lays down as the only certain rules of judging the truth of things by; and those were, sense, anticipation, and passion. Let sense be never so infallible a rule of judgment, yet it is impossible there should be any evidence to sense of the truth of this hypothesis; and let him extend his rò Apooμevóμevov as long as he please, which was his great help for correcting the errors of sense, viz. as it was in the Roman court, when the case was not clear, ampliandum est: so Epicurus would have the object represented every way it could be before he passed his judgment; yet this prudent caution would do him no good for this hypothesis, unless he were so wise as to stay till this world were crumbled into atoms again, that by that he might judge of the origin of it. There is but one way left to find out the truth of things inevident to sense, (as by Epicurus's own confession all these atoms are, which are now the component particles of bodies; much more those which by their fortuitous concourse gave being to the world,) and that is, if something evident to sense doth apparently prove it, which is his way of proving a vacuity in nature from motion: but though that be easily answered by principles different from those of Epicurus, and more rational, yet that very way of probation fails him in this present hypothesis. For what is there evident to sense which proves a fortuitous concourse of atoms for the production of things? Nay, if we grant him that the composition of bodies is nothing else but the contexture of these insensible particles, yet this is far from being an evidence to sense, that these particles, without any wise and directing Providence, should make up such bodies as we see in the world. And here, when we speak of the evidence of sense, we may well ask, as the Stoic in Tully doth, whether ever Epicurus found a poem made by the casual throwing of letters together; and if a concourse of atoms did produce the world, cur porticum, cur templum, Nat. Deor. cur domum, cur urbem non potest? Why did it never produce a cloister, a temple, a house, a city? which are far easier things than the world. I know Epicurus will soon reply, That things are otherwise in the world now than when it was first produced. I grant it, and from thence prove, that because no such thing ever happens in the Cicero de 1. ii. |