24 KANT'S UNIVERSAL NATURAL HISTORY 



necessarily with it, and that this is the most splendid 

 evidence of its dependence on that pre-existing Being who 

 contains in Himself not only the source of these beings 

 themselves but their primary laws of action. This insight 

 redoubles my confidence in the sketch of the system which 

 I have drawn. My confidence increases with every step 

 I make forward, and my timidity vanishes entirely. 



But it will be said that the defence of this system is 

 at the same time the defence of the opinions of Epicurus, 

 which have the greatest resemblance to it. I will not 

 deny all agreement whatever with that philosopher. Many 

 have become atheists by the semblance of reasons which, 

 on more exact reflection, would have convinced them most 

 powerfully of the certainty of the existence of the Supreme 

 Being. The consequences which a perverted understand- 

 ing draws from unimpeachable principles, are frequently 

 very reprehensible ; and such were the conclusions of Epi- 

 curus, although his scheme exhibited the acuteness of a 

 great thinker. 



I will therefore not deny that the theory of Lucretius, 

 or his predecessors, Epicurus, Leucippus, and Democritus, 

 has much resemblance with mine. I assume, like these 

 philosophers, that the first state of nature consisted in a 

 universal diffusion of the primitive matter of all the bodies 

 in space, or of the atoms of matter, as these philosophers 

 have called them. Epicurus asserted a gravity or weight 

 which forced these elementary particles to sink or fall ; 

 and this does not seem to differ much from Newton's 

 Attraction, which I accept. He also gave them a certain 

 deviation from the straight line in their falling movement, 

 although he had absurd fancies regarding the causes and 

 consequences of it. This deviation agrees in some degree 



