408 
tion; and to make a world out of a 
chaos needs a creating power as much 
as it does to fill a vacuum out of primi- 
tive immateriality. 
At any rate, of the non-eternity of the 
world we inhabit, and, consequently, of 
individual origin or creation, thereseems 
to be presumptive evidence abundant: of 
its eternal existence none. We should 
say, arguing from analogy, and from 
what can beknown of itshistory, that our 
world has all the appearance of being 
yet but young. (Six thousand years, or 
even sixteen, as the Chinese would 
make it, is youth—the comparative 
magnitude of the world, with its puny 
inhabitants, considered!) And com- 
paving the progress, in many respects, 
of the latter, with their condition in 
former centuries, we should say that 
the human race, considered as an ag- 
gregate, seems but just to have burst 
the swaths of infancy. The existence 
of this world from all eternity, it is im- 
possible for a moment to believe. The 
necessity of creation, or of a creating 
power—of the dissolution and regene- 
ration of worlds—is therefore not med- 
died with, in any respect, by an. in- 
quiry into the eternity of what we call 
matter. * 
To deny the eternity of matter (as 
far, at least, as any argument in the 
paper now in question goes,) seems to 
involve much of the same difficulty that 
is involved in the denial of an eternal 
self-existent being. It divides eternity 
—it makes two eternities: an eternity 
before the creation of matter, and 
another eternity commencing with the 
creation of matter. A commencing 
eternity!!! Nay, it does worse. As 
far as attributes are concerned, it makes 
two eternal self-existent minds. It 
makes a completely changeable and 
changed deity, with a complete muta- 
tion of attributes—who had existed 
through one eternity —or, what is the 
same in idea, but still more absurd in 
terms, through one half of eternity, 
without any disposition to create even 
matter ; a more than epicurean deity— 
exclusively self-wrapped ; and then to 
have bethought him of creating matter, 
that he might live another eternity, or 
other half of eternity, a creator of 
* It signifies little into what elements 
the chemistry of metaphysics, or the meta- 
physics of chemistry, may resolve it. There 
is something cognizable to our senses, 
which we call matter; and that is the ob- 
ject of our inquiry. 
‘On the Eternity of Matter. 
(Dec. I, 
worlds. There is an apparent absur- 
dity in the very statement of this pro- 
position, which almost excites a smile. 
Ihave no disposition, however, to throw 
ridicule upon the subject; and if I could 
find any terms less ludicrous, in which 
the idea could be stated, I would in- 
stantly draw the pen through what I 
have written. 
In the idea of an eternal succession 
and revolution of created and dissoly- 
ing, disorganizing and _ regenerating 
worlds, there is no equal difficulty. We 
cannot, indeed, form a positive idea 
(our minds cannot grasp it) of an eter- 
nal revolution of organizing and disor- 
ganizing systems—of new worlds eter- 
nally rising out of the wreck of old 
worlds, and of old worlds eternally has- 
tening to decay. Nor can we form a 
positive idea of eternity, or of a self- 
existent being ; but we can form these 
latter ideas negatively ; and our reason 
readily admits them, because they can- 
not be denied without involving a posi- 
tive contradiction. The affirmative of 
eternity and an eternal self-existence 
is only deyond our comprehension—the 
denial is contrary to our comprehen- 
sion ; and many things that are beyond 
our comprehension may, and must ac- 
tually be: but that which is contrary 
to comprehension cannot be. In this 
predicament of being beyond, but not 
contrary to comprehension, the idea of 
the eternity of matter, and the eternal 
revolution of organized and disorganiz- 
ing planets—of creation and decay— 
may, perhaps, on dispassionate investi- 
gation, be found to stand. Nay, we 
have some data (as has already been 
shewn, from the evidence of our own 
senses, and what we know of the his- 
tory of terrestrial phenomena) that may 
lead us some way, by analogy, to such a 
conclusion, -It does not go the whole 
length, indeed. We do not see pla- 
nets shedding their seeds to. sow new 
worlds, like vegetables; or generating, 
like animals; nor can reason, or even 
credulity believe they do so: neither 
do metals, rocks, or minerals shed 
their autumn seeds, or multiply by 
sexual intercourse:—they have laws 
of growth, concretion, solution, and 
production of their own. But we do 
see, and we do know, that all that we 
see is a perpetual series of decay and 
renovation, of dissolution and new or-- 
ganization ; and, that matter, though 
it change its form, does not perish: 
and where evidence and analogy fail 
us, there we escape (and there only, as 
far 
