^ ON THE PRINCIPLES OF THINGS. 



for there must always be a something contrary to good,"* a '^v/x<pvr6i eTtriivf^ja, 

 an innate propensity to disorder,"! in that eternal and independent prin- 

 ciple of matter, out of which all visible things are created. 



How much more consolatory, as well as agreeable to right reason, is the 

 view taken of this abstruse subject in the pages of genuine, unsophisticated, 

 and unphilosophised revelation, in which the present is represented as a 

 state, not of actual necessity, but of pre-ordained probation ; willed, in 

 infinite wisdom, by the great first cause, to promote the best ultimate hap- 

 piness of man ; and matter as a substance produced out of nothing by his 

 almighty fiat ! It was one of the express objects of the preceding lecture 

 to prove not only that matter does exist, in opposition to those who have 

 thought it expedient to deny the being of a sensible and material world, 

 but that it could not exist by any other means ; and that, while there is no 

 self-contradiction or absurdity in contending that matter, and that ten 

 thousand other substances than matter, may be produced out of nothing 

 by the energy of an infinite and omnipotent intelligence, there is so pure 

 and perfect an absurdity in endeavouring to account for its existence upon 

 every other theory which has hitherto been invented, that right reason 

 should induce us to embrace the former opinion with the same promptitud* 

 with which we fly from every opinion that opposes it. 



Matter, then, is the production of an almighty intelhgence, and as such 

 is entitled to our reverence ; although, from a just abhorrence of many an- 

 cient and not a few modern errors, it has too often been regarded in a low 

 and contemptible hght. Though not essentially eternal, as was contended 

 for by all the schools of Greece and Asia, nor essentially intelhgent, as was 

 contended for by several of them, it evinces in every part and in every 

 operation the impress of a divine origin, and is the only pathway vouch- 

 safed to our external senses by which we can walk — 



TJnrough nature up to nature's God ; 



that God whom we behold equally in the painted pebble and the |)ainted 

 flower — in the volcano and the corn-field — in the wild winter-storm and 

 in the soft summer moonhght. Although when contemplated in its ag- 

 gregate mass, and especially in its organized form, it is perpetually changing, 

 it is every where perfect in its kind, and even at present bears indubitable 

 proofs of being capacified for incorruptibility. In its elementary principles 

 it is maintained by the best schools of both ancient and modern times to 

 be solid and unchangeable ; and, even in many of its compound forms, it 

 discovers an obvious approach to the same character. The firm and mighty 

 mass that constitutes the pyramids of Egypt has resisted the assaults of 

 time and of tempests for, perhaps, upwards of four thousand years, and 

 by many critical antiquaries is supposed to have triumphed over the deluge 

 itself. While there is little doubt that the hard and closely crystallized 

 granitic mountains of every country in which they occur, the everlasting 

 hills," to copy a correct and beautiful figure from the pages of Hebrew 

 poetry, are coeval with the creation, and form at this moment, as they formed 

 at first, the lowest depths as well as the topmost peaks of the globe. That 

 they are in every instance considerably attenuated and wasted away admits, 

 indeed, of no doubt ; but to have borne the brunt of so long and incessant a 

 warfiire, without actually being worn down to the level of the circumjacent 



* Id Thecet. 1. 1 p. 176. j PWleb, See also Brucber, Hist. Phil. lib. ii- cap. Tiii. § 1. 



