38 ON THE ELEMENTARY AND CONSTITUENT 



existed eternally, or it could not have existed at all. But it appeared obvious 

 to most of them, that matter is as certainly unintelligent as they conjectured 

 it is certainly eternal. The existence of intelligence, however, is still more 

 demonstrable throughout nature than the existence of matter itself; and 

 hence such philosophers were driven to the acknowledgment of an intelli- 

 gent principle distinct from a material substance ; and from the union of these 

 two powers they accounted for the origin of the world : matter being merely 

 passive and plastic, and put into form and endowed with the qualities and 

 properties of body by the energy of the intelligent agent. But if form and 

 corporeal properties have been communicated to it, it must, before such com- 

 munication, and in its first or primal state, have been destitute of form ; and 

 that it was thus destitute is incontrovertible, continued the same schools of 

 philosophy, because form presupposes the existence of intelligence, and must 

 be, under every shape and modification, the product of an intelligent energy ; 

 for it is impossible that matter could have had a power of assuming one mode 

 of form rather than another mode : since, if capable of assuming any kind, it 

 must have been equally capable of assuming every kind, and, of course, of 

 exhibiting intelligent effects without an intelligent cause, which would be 

 utter nonsense. 



Such is the general train of reasoning that seems to have operated upon the 

 minds of Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle, in impelling them to the belief that 

 matter, in its primary state, to adopt the words of Cicero, in which he ex- 

 plains the Platonic doctrine, " is a substance without form or quality, but 

 capable of receiving all forms, and undergoing every kind of change ; in doing 

 which, however, it never suffers annihilation, but merely a solution of its 

 parts, which are in their nature infinitely divisible, and move in portions of 

 space which are also infinitely divisible."* 



But if we abstract from matter form and quality, and at the same time deny 

 it intelligence, what is there left to constitute it an eternal substance of any 

 kind ? and by what means could pure incorporeal intelligence endow it with 

 form? 



These difficulties are insuperable ; and, though attempted to be explained 

 in different ways by each of these philosophers, they press like millstones 

 upon their different systems, and are perpetually in danger of drowning 

 them. Pythagoras compared the existence of matter, in its primary and 

 amorphous state, to pure arithmetical numbers, before they are rendered 

 visible by arithmetical figures. " Unity," says he, " and one (the former of 

 which he denominated monad] are to be distinguished from each other: 

 unity is an abstract conception, resembling primary or incorporeal matter in 

 its general aggregate ; one appertains to things capable of being numbered, 

 and may be compared to matter rendered visible under a particular form." 

 So again, " Number is not infinite any more than matter ; but it is never- 

 theless the source of that infinite divisibility into equal parts which is the 

 property of all bodies."! 



Numbers, however, were not more generally had recourse to by Pythago 

 ras, to typify elementary matter under different modifications, than they are 

 in the present day by the most elaborate chemists, to express its particular 

 combinations : " As in all well-known compounds," observes Sir Humphry 

 Davy, " the proportions of the elements are in certain definite ratios to each 

 other, it is evident that these ratios may be expressed by numbers."! ^ n 

 consequence of which they are so expressed in various places by himself, 

 and by many French, Swedish, and English chemists, the hint having been 

 first suggested, I believe, by Higgens or Dalton. And hence the doctrine of 

 numbers is well known to have been very largely and very repeatedly had 

 recourse to under the Pythagorean system, and to have been used in explana- 

 tion, not only of the endowment of different portions of matter with different 

 forms, but of the harmony with which the different natures of matter and 



* Acad. Qusest. lib. i. cap. 8. 



t Anon. Photii, lib. c. Nicomac. apud Phot Themist. In Phys. lib. iii. sect. 25, p. 67. See also En- 

 field's Brucker, i. b. ii. ch. 12, p. 383 i Davy, Elem. i. 



