ON MATTER, ANIT 



Matter, then, we are compelled to regard as a substance created out 

 of nothing by an intelligent first cause ; himself immaterial, self- existent^ 

 eternal, and alone ; and of matter the whole visible universe is composed. 

 It is arranged and regulated by an extensive code of laws, of which, how- 

 ever, we know but a few ; and which give birth to a multiplicity of con- 

 crete forms, under which alone we are capable of contemplating it ; for no 

 effort has hitherto succeeded in ultimately enucleating the compound and 

 tracing it to its elementary particles. We may divide and subdivide as 

 we please ; but when we have followed it up into its subtlest rudiments, 

 its most retiring principles, by the aid of the best glasses which the best 

 art of man can provide for us, we learn no more of the real nature of 

 its primitive essence than we do from an acorn or a pebble. 



But we are as ignorant of matter in its total scope as we are of it in its 

 elementary particles. We can examine it as it exists in the globe, but the 

 globe on which we tread is but as a drop to the ocean ; the earth is sur- 

 rounded by other planets, by other worlds, by other systems of worlds ; all 

 of which, we have reason to believe, are composed of the same substance, 

 and regulated by the same laws. We stretch out our view on every side^ 

 but there are still worlds beyond us ; we call in the aid of the best glasses, 

 but they still surpass our reach ; till, at length we resign ourselves to 

 imagination, and in the confusion of our thoughts and the weakness of our 

 language we speak of space as being filled, and of matter as being infinite. 



This view of the subject has given rise to a variety of magnificent specu- 

 lations, at which I shall just glance, without meaning to dwell upon them. 

 Is all this immensity of matter, this universe of worlds within worlds, and 

 systems within systems, the result of one single fiat of the ||reat Creator ? 

 Did the Power that spake it mto existence give it from the first the gene- 

 ral order and harmony and perfection that prevail at present ? or did he 

 merely produce a vast central and aggregate chaos, as the rude basis of 

 future worlds, the parent-stock or storehouse from which they have since 

 issued by a series of distinct efforts and evolutions ? or, thirdly, has every 

 separate system of worlds, or every separate planet, been the result of a 

 separate birth, and a separate act of creation ? 



It is of little importance which of these splendid fancies we adopt ; for 

 all of them are but fancies, and built upon conjecture alone. In a course 

 of philosopftical inquiry, however, it becomes us to be acquainted with their 

 existence ; and to be informed, beyond this, that the second is the specula- 

 tion which has been more generally espoused by philosophers ; that, I mean, 

 which conceives the existence of a central and primary chaos, from which 

 all the heavenly bodies have successively proceeded, of whatever kind or 

 description, whether suns, stars, comets, or planets; though the mode by 

 which such efforts have been produced has been variously accounted for. 

 Des Cartes seems to have supposed stars to have preceded planets in the 

 order of creation ; and that the earth was at first a star, and continued so 

 till rendered opake by having its bright surface encrusted with grosser and 

 untransparent matter, and drawn into the vortex of the solar system ; and 

 Leibnitz adopted his conjecture. Whiston conceived it to have been 

 originally a comet, the rude materials of which constituted the chaos of the 

 earth ; and Buffon, to have consisted of a comet and a portion of the sun's 

 exterior limb or edg© carried off by such comet, in consequence of its hav- 

 ing given the sun an oblique stroke in the course of its orbit ; the chaos of 

 the earth being thus formed by the vapoury substance of the impinging 

 €jQm^t uniting with a portion of the sun's igneous mass ; and in this ma'^^ ' 



