It is
certain, on the contrary, that the fortuitous concourse of
characters, putting them together by turns with an infinite variety,
the precise combination that composes the Iliad must have happened
in its turn, somewhat sooner or somewhat later. It has happened at
last; and thus the Iliad is perfect, without the help of any human
art." This is the objection fairly laid down in its full latitude;
I desire the reader's serious and continued attention to the answers
I am going to make to it.
SECT. LXXV. Answers to the Objection of the Epicureans drawn from
the Eternal Motion of Atoms.
Nothing can be more absurd than to speak of successive combinations
of atoms infinite in number; for the infinite can never be either
successive or divisible. Give me, for instance, any number you may
pretend to be infinite, and it will still be in my power to do two
things that shall demonstrate it not to be a true infinite. In the
first place, I can take an unit from it; and in such a case it will
become less than it was, and will certainly be finite; for whatever
is less than the infinite has a boundary or limit on the side where
one stops, and beyond which one might go. Now the number which is
finite as soon as one takes from it one single unit, could not be
infinite before that diminution; for an unit is certainly finite,
and a finite joined with another finite cannot make an infinite. If
a single unit added to a finite number made an infinite, it would
follow from thence that the finite would be almost equal to the
infinite; than which nothing can be more absurd.
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