It may be also demonstrated, that the formation of worlds, by the chances of a blind motion, and their regular continuity of existence, are two propositions which disagree. Let us explain this idea. The play of atoms, necessary in order to produce the unformed masses of the heavenly bodies, being infinitely less complicated than that which is necessary to produce them, inhabited as they are with intelligent beings, must have happened long before the other. Thus, in the system of the composition of the universe, by the fortuitous concourse of atoms, it is necessary to suppose, that these atoms, after having been united to form the heavenly bodies, have been severed, and united again, as many times as was necessary, to produce a planet inhabited by intelligent beings. Since beings thus endowed add nothing to the stability of the world, since they do not contribute to the grand coalition of all its parts; why the same blind motion which has united, dissolved, and assembled so often every part of the earth, before it was composed, such as it is; why does it not produce some alteration now? It should again reduce to powder our world, or at least, let us perceive the commencement of some new form. It is not only to a world inhabited by intelligent beings, that the arguments, just mentioned, may be applicable; for we perceive around us an innumerable multitude of beauties and features of harmony, which were not necessary to the preservation of our world, and which, according to every rule of probability, would never have existed, unless we supposed, that the earth has been formed, dissolved, and reproduced, an infinity of times, before having been composed such as we see it; but then I would ask, why there are no vestiges of those alterations, and why that motion has stopped? It would be possible, however, by the assistance of a new supposition, to resolve the difficulty I have just mentioned; some may say, that the union, and the successive dispersion of the universal atoms, are executed in a space of time, so slow and insensible, that our observations, and all those which we have from tradition, cannot inform us whether there will not be a separation of all the parts of the universe, by the same causes which have occasioned their adhesion.