A MATERIAL WORLD„ 



11 



among the philosopbers of ancient nations. That a ioose and floating 

 idea of its creation by the energy of a pure intelligence is occasionally to 

 be met with, and which probably existed as a remnant of patriarchal tra- 

 dition, 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 embodied or promulgated as a doctrine of philosophy. 



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

 posed absurdity in conceiving that any thing could be created out of no- 

 thing.-'^ The Epicureans, and many other schools of philosophers, wiio 

 borrov/ed it flom them, perpetually appeal to this position. It was cur- 

 rent, however, among many of the philosophers of Greece at a mucli 

 earlier period ; for Democritus expressly asserted, according to Diogenes 

 Laertius, " that nothing could spring from nothing, or could ever return 

 to nothing." Epicurus, in the few fragments of his that have reached us. 

 echoed the tenet in the following terms : Know first of all, that nothing 

 can spring from non-entity." It was thus given by Aristotle : To sup- 

 pose what has been created has been created from nothing, is to divest it 

 of all power, for it is a dogma of those who pretend thus to think, that 

 every thing must still possess its own nature." From the Greeks it passer! 

 to the Romans, and appears as follows in Lucretius — 



ubi viderimus nihil posse creari 

 Denihilo, turn, quod sequimnr, jamrectius inde 

 Ferspiciemus.j 



Admit this truth, that naught from nothing springs, 

 And all is clear. 



And it was thus long aftervv'ards reiterated by Persiu-^. as liic coinmoH 

 doctrine of his day :— - 



gjgni 



De nihilo ni', innihilun) nil posse reverti,^ 



Naught springs from uanght, and can to naught l etiU i). 



The Greeks themselves, however, seem to Jiave received it froTo the 

 East, and to have become acquainted with it as a branch of gymnosophy : 

 for it constitutes, even in the present day, a distinct doctrine of Brahmini- 

 cal religion, and is thus urged in univocal terms in tlie Yajur Void, in the 

 course of an address to Brahm, or the Supreme .Being : The ignorant 

 assert that the universe, in the beginning, did not exist in its author, ancf 

 that it was created out of nothing. O ye, whose hearts arc pure ! hon) 

 could something arise out of nothing ?^^^ 



This reasoning seems, indeed, to have spread almost universally, and 

 perhaps from the same quarter ; for we find many of the Jewish theolo- 

 gians, and not a few of the Christian fathers, too much influenced by Pla- 

 tonic principles, giving countenance to the same doctrine, though probably 

 not to the full extent of the Platonic school. Thus the author of the Book 



* This, and two or three subsequent passages in the present lecture, are given suran)ari!y 

 from an ampler and more recondite view of the subject in the author's prolegomena to his 

 translation of the nature of things." 



t De Rer. Nat. i. 157. | Sat. iii. S3. 



§ The passage is quoted from M. Anquetil De Perron's Latin version. The reader mav 

 tiad various similar extracts in sSir William Jones's works, vol. vi. 4to. edit. 



