FORMATION OF COMPOUND BODIES. 177 



themselves, but which were produced by some 

 other being : and, as every thing which is 

 created, must, of necessity, have had a Creator; 

 (because nothing which is created can be the 

 cause of its own creation) a time must have 

 been when the first vegetables were created 

 without seed, the first animals without inter- 

 course. The same observations equally apply 

 with respect to the existence of compound bo- 

 dies, formed from those that are simple. It 

 might as well be supposed, that the different 

 organs, of which living beings are composed, 

 were formed before the power which formed 

 them had any actual existence, as to affirm that 

 compound bodies existed before their elemen^ 

 tary parts.* The qualities of those ingredients 



* The nature of the power subsisting as a cause, by whose 

 energy various effects are produced, would, in this place, 

 be a proper object of inquiry ; but persuaded as I am, that 

 such an inquiry would not only, perhaps, be fruitless, but to 

 a certainty, ill received, I shall, for these reasons, avoid it. 

 It is, nevertheless, important to observe, that the learned 

 author of antient metaphysics, observes, that both nature 

 and art t have the same end in their operations ; and that 

 when the end is obtained, the thing operated upon, is in a 

 state of perfection, or completion ; that in the operation of both 

 nature and art, there is a progress, and, by consequence, a 

 change from one thing to another; and that this change is 

 motion. It is, however, very evident, that as every thing 

 which exists, whether by nature or art, was before it ex- 

 isted possible to exist; it must, therefore, have existed 



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