A MATERIAL WORLD. 



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i^opliisrns, but our time will not allow me ; and it is the less necessary^ 

 as I shall have an opportunity, on a future occasion, of reverting to all 

 these various conjectures, and examining them at full length.* 



But why, after all, is it necessary to support the proposition, that " no^ 

 thing can spring from nothing ?" Why may not something spring from 

 nothings when the proposition is applied to Omnipotence ?t I may be 

 answered, perhaps, because it is a self-contradiction, an impossibihty, an 

 absurdity. This, however, is only to argue in a circle ; for why is it a 

 self-contradiction, or an impossibility ? " It is impossible," said M. Leib- 

 nitz, for a thing to be and not to be at the same time." This impossi" 

 bility I admit ; because, to assert the contrary, would imply a self-contra- 

 diction absolute and universal, founded upon the very nature of things, 

 and consequently applicable to Omnipotence itself. But the position that 

 '^nothing can spring from nothing" is of a very different character : it is 

 necessarily true when applied to man, but it is not necessarily true when ap- 

 phed to God. Instead of being absolute and universal, it is relative and limit-' 

 ed; the nature of things does not allow us to reason concerning it when its 

 reference is to the latter : and hence we have no authority to say that it is 

 impossible to tfi^Deity ; or to maintain that an absolute creation out of no- 

 thing by the Deity is an absurdity or self-contradiction. It is absurd to sup- 

 pose that matter does not exist ; it is absurd to suppose that it does 

 exist externally and independently of the Creator ; it is absurd to suppose 

 that it constitutes the Creator himself : but, as it is not absurd to suppose 

 its absolute /ormation out of nothing by the exercise of an Almighty 

 power, and as one of these four propositions must necessarily be true, 

 reason shoul^^ induce us to embrace the last with the same promptitude 

 with which we reject the other three. 



So far, indeed, from intimating any absurdity in the idea that matter 

 may be created out of nothing by the interposition of an almighty intelli- 

 gence, reason seems, on the contrary, rather to point out to us the possi- 

 bility of an equal creation out of nothing of ten thousand other substances-, 

 of which each may be the medium of life and happiness to infinite orders 

 of beings ; while every one may, at the same time, be as distinct from 

 every other, as the whole may be from matter, or as matter is from 

 what, without knowing any thing farther of, we commonly denominate 

 spirit. Spirit, as generally used among modern metaphysicians, is, to say 

 the most of it, but a negative term employed to express something that m 

 not matter ; but there may be ten thousand somethings, and substrates of 

 being, and moral excellence and fehcity, v/hich are not matter, none of 

 which, however, we can otherwise characterize. Yet why, between all 

 or any of these and matter itself, there should be such an utter opposition 

 and discrepance as was contended for by Des Cartes, and has since been 

 maintained by most metaphj'sicians, I cannot possibly conjecture ; nor 

 conceive why it should be universally thought necessary, as it still appears 

 to be thought, that the essence of the eternal Creator himself must indis- 

 pensably consist of the essence of some one of the orders of beings whom 

 he has created. — Why may it not be as distinct from that of an archangel 

 as from that of a mortal ? from the whole of these various substances, 

 which I have just supposed, and which we cannot otherwise contemplate 

 or characterize than by the negative term Spirit, as it is from matter, which 

 is more immediately submitted to our eyes, and constitutes the substrate 

 of our own being and sensations ? 



* SerissIlL Lett Y. p. 406. j See the Author's Prolegrnneair, ti sufra, p. IxivHiv 



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