JO 



ON MATTER, AND 



and only a small portion of it can be engaged in during a single series. 

 I shali endeavour to advance in it as I am able ; and the infinite variety it 

 presents to us will at all times, I trust, prevent the pursuit from proving dull 

 or uninteresting. Could it indeed be completed as it ought, it vvouU 

 constitute the philosophia prima, or universal science of the great author 

 I have just adverted to. 



My sole object, however, is to communicate information so far as I may 

 be able ; to exhaust nothing, but to touch upon many things; to give a 

 desire for learning, rather than to consummate the learning that may be 

 desirable ; to ran over the vast volume of nature, not in its separate 

 pages, but in its table of contents, so that we may hereafter be the better 

 prepared for studying it more minutely, and for feeling in some measure 

 at home upon the various subjects it presents to us. 



Yet, after all, lectures alone can do but little, whatever the energy or 

 perspicuity with which they may be delivered. They may, perhaps, 

 awaken a latent propensity, or enkindle a transient inclination ; but unless 

 the new-born flame be fed and fostered, unless it be nourished by study, 

 as well as excited by hearing, it will perish as soon as lighted up ; or, if 

 it continue, will only blaze forth in a foppery of knowledge far more 

 contemptible than the grossest ignorance. v 



Let us then enter upon our respective duties with equal ardour. The 

 path of science is open to every variety of age, and almost to every vari- 

 ety of education. Thousands at this moment behind are pressing forward, 

 and will surpass those that are before ; and the richest and most gratify- 

 ing reward I can ever receive will be, to find that many to whom this 

 course of study is delivered will hereafter be able to communicate to 

 nie the same proportion of information, which it is ray duty to suppose 

 I can at present communicate to them. 



One of the first inquiries that can ever press upon the mind must re- 

 late to the nature of matter, and the origin of the world around us : 

 what is this common sabstance from which every thing visible has pro- 

 ceeded, and to which every thing visible is reducible ? has it existed from 

 all eternity ? or has it been called into being by the voice of an Omnipo- 

 tent Creator ? and in either case, has it uniformly exhibited its present 

 Iiarmony and arrangement, or has there been a period in which it was 

 destitute of form and order, a waste and shapeless chaos ? 



These are questions which have tried the wisdom of man in all ages ; 

 and, I may add, v/hich in all ages have proved its littleness, and the need 

 we stand in of ijluminatiou from a superior source. Such, upon one or 

 two points, we have received ; upon the rest we are still ignorant ; and, 

 but for what we have received, we should have been still ignorant upon 

 the whole. 



If we search into the systems of all the ancient schools of philosophy, 

 amidst an infinite variety of jarring opinions in other respects, we find 

 them, perhaps without an exception, concurring in a behef of the eternity 

 of matter, or that general substance which constitutes the visible world 

 around m ; which was sometimes conceived to be intelhgent in many of 

 its corpuscles, and unintelhgent in the rest, as was taught by Democritus ; 

 sometimes intelligent as a whole, though unintelligent in its separate 

 parts, as taught both by Aristotle and Plato ; and sometimes unintelligent 

 in ail its parts and particles, whether united or disjoined, which formed 

 the dogma of Epicurus. Under some modification or other, however, 

 the doctrine @f the eternity of matter appears to have been universal 



DSI 



