Now, who is it that
pitched upon either of these two laws equally possible? What is not
determined by the essence of bodies can have been determined by no
other but Him who gave bodies the motion they had not in their own
essence. Besides, this motion in a direct line might have been
upwards or downwards, from right to left, or from left to right, or
in a diagonal line. Now, who is it that determined which way the
straight line should go?
SECT. LXXXIII. The Epicureans can draw no Consequence from all
their Suppositions, although the same should be granted them.
Let us still attend the Epicureans even in their most fabulous
suppositions, and carry on the fiction to the last degree of
complaisance. Let us admit motion in the essence of bodies, and
suppose, as they do, that motion in a direct line is also essential
to all atoms. Let us bestow upon atoms both a will and an
understanding, as poets did on rocks and rivers. And let us allow
them likewise to choose which way they will begin their straight
line. Now, what advantage will these philosophers draw from all I
have granted them, contrary to all evidence? In the first place,
all atoms must have been in motion from all eternity; secondly, they
must all have had an equal motion; thirdly, they must all have moved
in a direct line; fourthly, they must all have moved by an immutable
and essential law.
I am still willing to gratify our adversaries, so far as to suppose
that those atoms are of different figures, for I will allow them to
take for granted what they should be obliged to prove, and for which
they have not so much as the shadow of a proof.
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