26 



ON xMATTER, AND 



be able ; to exhaust nothing-, but to tounh upon many things; to give a desire 

 for learning-, rather than to consummate the learning- that may be desirable,* 

 to run over the vast volume of nature, not in its separate pages, but in its 

 table of contents, so that we may hereafter be the better prepared for studying 

 it more minutely, and for feeling in some measure at home upon the various 

 subjects it presents to us. 



Yet, after all, lectures alone can do but little, -vi'hatever the energy or per- 

 spicuity with v/hich they may be delivered. They may, perhaps, awaken a 

 latent propensity, or enkindle a transient inclination ; but unless the new- 

 born flame be fed and fostered, unless it be nourished by study, as well as 

 excited by hearing, it will perish as soon as lighted up; or, if it continue, will 

 only blnze forth in a foppery of knowledge far more contemptible than the 

 grossest ignorance. 



Let us, then, enter upon our respective duties with equal ardour. The path 

 of science is open to every variety of age, and almost to every variety of educa- 

 tion. Thousands at this moment behind are pressing forward, and will surpass 

 those that are before ; and the richest and most gratifying reward I can ever 

 receive will be, to find that many to whom this course of study is delivered 

 will hereafter be able to communicate to me the same proportion of informa- 

 tion, which it is my duty to suppose I can at present communicate to them. 



One of the first inquiries that can ever press upon the mind must relate to 

 the nature of matter, and the origin of the world around us : what is this 

 common substance from which everything visible has proceeded, and to which 

 every thing visible is reducible 1 has it existed from all eternity ] or has it 

 been called into being by the voice of an Omnipotent Creator] and in either 

 case, has it uniformly exhibited its present harmony and arrangement, or has 

 there been a period in which it was destitute of form and order, a waste and 

 shapeless chaos ] 



These are questions which have tried the wisdom of man in all ages ; and, 

 I may add, which in all ages have proved its littleness, and the need we stand 

 in of illumination from a superior source. Such, upon one or two points, we 

 have received ; upon the rest we are still ignorant; and, but for what we have 

 received, we sliould have been still ignorant upon the whole. 



If we search into the systems of all the ancient schools of philosophy, 

 amid an infinite variet}- of jarring opinions in other respects, we find them, 

 perhaps without an exception, concurring in a belief of the eternity of mat- 

 ter, or that general substance which constitutes the visible world around us ; 

 which was sometimes conceived to be intelligent in many of its corpuscles, 

 and unintelligent in the rest, as was taught by Democritus ; sometimes intelli- 

 gent as a whole, though unintelligent in its separate parts, as taught both by 

 Aristotle and Plato; and sometimes unintelligent in all its parts and particles, 

 whether united or disjoined, which formed the dogma of Epicurus. Under 

 some modification or other, however, the doctrine of the eternity of matter 

 appears to have been universal among the philosophers of ancient n-ations. 

 That a loose and floating idea of its creation, by the energy of a pure intelli- 

 gence, is occasionally to be met with, and which probably existed as a rem- 

 nant of patriarchal tradition, must be admitted; for the Tuscans were 

 generally allowed to have entertained such an idea, and we find it frequently 

 adverted to and opposed by the leaders of the different schools ; but in no 

 instance does it seem to have been imbodied or promulgated as a doctrine of 

 philosophy. 



The grand motive for this general belief appears to have been a supposed 

 absurdity in conceiving that any thing could be created out of nothing.* The 

 Epicureans, and many other schools of philosophers, who borrowed it from 

 them, perpetually appeal to this position. It was current, however, among 

 many of the philosophers of Greece at a much earlier period ; for Democritus 

 expressly asserted, according to Diogenes Laertius, "that nothing could 



* This, and two or three subsequent vasf='aKP2jjn the present lecture, are given summarily from an 

 ampler and more recondite view of the subj*^"* ' author's prolegomena to his translation of " thb 



KA.TUK1C OF THINGS*" 



