A MATERIAL WORLD. 



13 



Atid it will not be questioned, I think, that there is more sound sense and 

 judgment in employing, as on the present occasion, a well understood term, 

 that comes nearest to the full extent of the idea intended to be conveyed, 

 than to invent a new v/ord for the purpose that nobody has ever heard of, 

 and, consequently that nobody can comprehend the meaning of, till the 

 very term that is thus objected to, or some other word from the vulgar dia- 

 lect, shall be had recourse to as its interpreter. Yet although, in the He- 

 brew Scriptures, the word Js^d is occasionally used synonymously with our 

 own terms, " to make, produce, or cause to be," to import a formation 

 from a substance already in existence, we have sufficient proof that it was 

 also understood of old to import emphatically, like our own word create," 

 an absolute formation out of nothmg. Maimonides expressly tells us, that 

 it was thus understood in the passage before us, as well as in all others that 

 have a reference to it, by the ancient Hebrews ; while Origen affirms, that 

 such was its import among many of the Christian fathers, whatever might 

 be the opinion of the rest, and forcibly objects to the passage just quoted 

 from the Book of Wisdom, as a book not admitted into the established " 

 canon of Sjzripture. 



Still, however, the doctrine of a creation of something out of nothing 

 was generally held to be a palpable absurdity ; and a variety of hypotheses 

 were invented to avoid it, of which the three following appear to have been 

 the chief; each of them, however, if 1 mistake not, plunging us into an 

 absurdity ten times deeper and more inextricable. '1 he first is that of an 

 absolute and independent eternity of matter, to which I have already re- 

 ferred ; the second, that of its emanation from the essence of the Creator ; 

 the third, that of idealism, or the non-existence of a material world. 



T have already remarked, that the first of these was modified under the 

 plastic hands of different philosophers of antiquity into a great variety of 

 shapes ; and hence, ij^ some form or other, is to be traced through most of 

 the Grecian schools, whether of the Ionic or Italic sect — or, in other words, 

 whether derived from Thales or from Pythagoras. In no shape, however, 

 is it for a moment capable of standing the test of sober inquiry. We may 

 regard matter as essentially and eternally intelligent, or as essentially and 

 eternally unintelligent ; as essentially intelligent in its several parts, or as 

 essentially intelligent as a whole. The dilemma is equal in all these cases. 

 Matter cannot be intelhgent as a whole, without being intelligent in every 

 atom, for a concourse of unintelligent atoms can never produce intelli- 

 gence ; but if it be intelligent in every atom, then are we perpetually 

 meeting with unintelligent compounds resulting from intelhgent elements. 

 If, again, matter be essentially eternal, but at the same time essentially un- 

 intelligent, both separately and collectively, then, an intelligent principle 

 being traced in the world, and even in man himself, we are put into posses- 

 sion of two co-eternal independent principles, destitute of all relative con- 

 nexion and com^mon medium of action. 



The SECOND HYPOTHESIS to which I have adverted is not less crowded 

 with difficulties and absurdities ; but it has a more imposing appearance, 

 and has hence, in many periods and among many nations, been more popu- 

 lar, and was perpetually leading away a multitude of the philosophers 

 from the preceding system. According to this hypothesis, the universe is 

 an emanation or extension of the essence of the Creator. Now, under this 

 belief, however modified, the Creator himself is rendered material ; or, in 

 other words, matter itself, or the visible substance of the world is rendered 



