But the very absurdity of the
consequence serves to expose the extravagance of the principle they
lay down. When men, by the natural rectitude of their common sense,
conclude that such sort of works cannot result from chance, they
visibly suppose, though in a confused manner, that atoms are not
eternal, and that in their fortuitous concourse they had not an
infinite succession of combinations. For if that principle were
admitted, it would no longer be possible ever to distinguish the
works of art from those that should result from those combinations
as fortuitous as a throw at dice.
SECT. LXXVI. The Epicureans confound the Works of Art with those
of Nature.
All men who naturally suppose a sensible difference between the
works of art and those of chance do consequently, though but
implicitly, suppose that the combinations of atoms were not
infinite--which supposition is very just. This infinite succession
of combinations of atoms is, as I showed before, a more absurd
chimera than all the absurdities some men would explain by that
false principle. No number, either successive or continual, can be
infinite; from whence it follows that the number of atoms cannot be
infinite, that the succession of their various motions and
combinations cannot be infinite, that the world cannot be eternal,
and that we must find out a precise and fixed beginning of these
successive combinations. We must recur to a first individual in the
generations of every species.
Pages:
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131