To reach the highest degree of amazing extravagance, the Epicureans
have had the assurance to explain and account for what we call the
soul of man and his free-will, by the clinamen, which is so
unaccountable and inexplicable itself. Thus they are reduced to
affirm that it is in this motion, wherein atoms are in a kind of
equilibrium between a straight line and a line somewhat circular,
that human will consists.
Strange philosophy! If atoms move only in a straight line, they are
inanimate, and incapable of any degree of knowledge, understanding,
or will; but if the very same atoms somewhat deviate from the
straight line, they become, on a sudden, animate, thinking, and
rational. They are themselves intelligent souls, that know
themselves, reflect, deliberate, and are free in their acts and
determinations. Was there ever a more absurd metamorphosis? What
opinion would men have of religion if, in order to assert it, one
should lay down principles and positions so trifling and ridiculous
as theirs who dare to attack it in earnest?
SECT. LXXXVII. The Epicureans cast a Mist before their own Eyes by
endeavouring to explain the Liberty of Man by the Declination of
Atoms.
But let us consider to what degree those philosophers impose upon
their own understandings. What can they find in the clinamen that,
with any colour, can account for the liberty of man? This liberty
is not imaginary; for it is not in our power to doubt of our free-
will, any more than it is to doubt of what we are intimately
conscious and certain.
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