Thus they turn and wind them at pleasure, according
as they fancy best for their purpose. But upon what authority do
they suppose this declination of atoms, which comes so pat to bear
up their system? If motion in a straight line be essential to
bodies, nothing can bend, nor consequently join them, in all
eternity; the clinamen destroys the very essence of matter, and
those philosophers contradict themselves without blushing. If, on
the contrary, the motion in a direct line is not essential to all
bodies, why do they so confidently suppose eternal, necessary, and
immutable laws for the motion of atoms without recurring to a first
mover? And why do they build a whole system of philosophy upon the
precarious foundation of a ridiculous fiction? Without the clinamen
the straight line can never produce anything, and the Epicurean
system falls to the ground; with the clinamen, a fabulous poetical
invention, the direct line is violated, and the system falls into
derision and ridicule.
Both the straight line and the clinamen are airy suppositions and
mere dreams; but these two dreams destroy each other, and this is
the upshot of the uncurbed licentiousness some men allow themselves
of supposing as eternal truths whatever their imagination suggests
them to support a fable; while they refuse to acknowledge the artful
and powerful hand that formed and placed all the parts of the
universe.
SECT. LXXXVI. Strange Absurdity of the Epicureans, who endeavour
to account for the Nature of the Soul by the Declination of Atoms.
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