We are very pleasant atoms. We make God a spirit in a mode of our own;
and because we denominate that faculty spirit, which the supreme,
universal, eternal, and all-powerful Being has given us, of combining a
few ideas in our little brain, of the extent of six inches more or less,
we suppose God to be a spirit in the same sense. God always in _our_
image--honest souls!
But how, if there be millions of beings of another nature from our
matter, of which we know only a few qualities, and from our spirit, our
ideal breath of which we accurately know nothing at all? and who can
assert that these millions of beings exist not; or suspects not that
God, demonstrated to exist by His works, is eminently different from all
these beings, and that space may not be one of them?
We are far from asserting with Lucretius--
_Ergo, præter inane et corpora, tertia per se_
_Nulla potest rerum in numero natura referri._
--LIB., i, v. 446, 447.
That all consists of body and of space.--CREECH.
But may we venture to believe with him, that space is infinite?
Has any one been ever able to answer his question: Speed an arrow from
the limits of the world--will it fall into nothing, into nihility?
Clarke, who spoke in the name of Newton, pretends that "space has
properties, for since it is extended, it is measurable, and therefore
exists." But if we answer, that something may be put where there is
nothing, what answer will be made by Newton and Clarke?
Newton regards space as the sensorium of God. I thought that I
understood this grand saying formerly, because I was young; at present,
I understand it no more than his explanation of the Apocalypse. Space,
the sensorium, the internal organ of God! I lose both Newton and myself
there.
Newton thought, according to Locke, that the creation might be explained
by supposing that God, by an act of His will and His power, had rendered
space impenetrable. It is melancholy that a genius so profound as that
possessed by Newton should suggest such unintelligible things.
STAGE (POLICE OF THE).
Kings of France were formerly excommunicated; all from Philip I. to
Louis VIII. were solemnly so; as also the emperors from Henry IV. to
Louis of Bavaria inclusively. The kings of England had likewise a very
decent part of these favors from the court of Rome. It was the rage of
the times, and this rage cost six or seven hundred thousand men their
lives. They actually excommunicated the representatives of monarchs; I
do not mean ambassadors, but players, who are kings and emperors three
or four times a week, and who govern the universe to procure a
livelihood.
I scarcely know of any but this profession, and that of magicians, to
which this honor could now be paid; but as sorcerers have ceased for the
eighty years that sound philosophy has been known to men, there are no
longer any victims but Alexander, Cæsar, Athalie, Polyeucte, Andromache,
Brutus, Zaïre, and Harlequin.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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