356 A N T I E N T METAPHYSICS. Book IV.% 



without change or variation of any kind ; the latter, to beings which 

 exift only by fucceffion, either as to their fubftance, or their accidents. 

 Of the firfl kind, we conceive the Deity to be, whom we believe not 

 only to have been from all eternity, but to be ivithout change^ or flja- 

 dotv of change. As to his eternity, it is admitted by all philofophers, 

 that there never was a time when nothing exifted ; but there always 

 mufl: have been Jomething^ otherwife nothing could ever have been. 

 Whatever, therefore, the firft caufe or principle of things be, whether 

 mind or matter, atoms or empty fpace, it muft have been, according 

 to the fentiments of the whole philofophers, from all eternity ; fo that 

 a Deity, or Firft Caufe, of one kind or other, is admitted by all philo- 

 fophers, and acknowledged to have exifted from all eternity. Of the 

 other kind are all material fubftances, which are in perpetual flux, 

 and conftantly changing, both as to fubftance and accidents. Thofe 

 philofophers, therefore, whofe Deity v;as matter, and who maintained, 

 that nothing but matter exifted in the univerfe, did not acknowledge 

 any being of ftable and permanent duration ; confequently, according 

 to them, every thing exifted in time ; and they did not acknowledge 

 the diftindion above mentioned betwixt time and eternity *. And 

 one of thefe philofophers, viz. Heraclitus, faid very properly, that evc- 



* Democritu.3 and Epicurus, who make a vacuum to be one of the principles of na' 

 ture, did acknowledge this dillin£tion ; becaufc a vacuum, if it be any thing at all, is 

 certainly a permanent and durable exiftence, without change or variation, at leaft 

 while it continues a vacuum. But it is to be obferved, in xhcfirjl place, that a va- 

 cuum, by being filled with body, undergoes the greatefl of all changes, for it pafles 

 from a ftate of exiftence to a ftate of non-exiftence. And this, according to their fy- 

 Hem, was conftantly happening, by the perpetual motion of their atoms. 2dly, One, 

 at leafi, of their principles of nature, was in perpetual fiux and change ; fo that, fup- 

 pofing their vacuum to be of permanent duration, the other principle was continually 

 changing. Here, therefore, are two principles of things, of natures quite difFcrent; the 

 one fixed and immoveable, the other in ccnftant motion. But the truth is, that, ac- 

 cording to thofe philofophers, there is no fixed or permanent principle in nature : So 

 that, according to them, time and eternity were the fame, and every thing eternal;: 

 ^ttt every thing unftablc, without order or arrangement, conftancy, or fixed duratioa. 



