It is obvious, that transporting us into infinity and admitting such a series of arbitrary suppositions, they are not indeed exposed to any rational attacks; but, making equally free with infinity, in order to oppose nonsense to nonsense, why may I not be allowed to suppose, that in the infinite combinations arising from perpetual motion, men have been created, destroyed, and again called into being, with the same faculties, remembrances, thoughts, relations, and circumstances; and why each of us separated from our former existence, only by a sleep, whose duration is imperceptible, should not be in our own eyes immortal beings? Infinity permits the supposition of this absurd hypothesis, as it authorises every flight of the imagination in which time is reckoned for nothing. We see, however, how we risk running into error, when with our limited faculties we wish to subject the incomprehensible idea of infinity, and boldly adjust it to the combinations of finite beings. Let us produce, however, another objection. It may be said, that our planet is the result of chance; but is not this chance improbable, if we suppose that there existed in the infinity of space, an infinite number of other assembled atoms, equally produced by the first throw of the dice, which represent all the possible forms, and imaginable proportions? And I would also ask, by what laws, all these irregular bodies, necessarily subject, by reason of their number and masses, to an infinity of movements, have not disconcerted the planetary system formed, at the same time as they were, by chance? I ought to observe, above all, that the order which we are acquainted with, is a proof of universal order; for, in immensity, where one part is nothing compared with the whole, no part, without exception, could be preserved, unless it was in equilibrium with every other. Thus, whether _an infinite succession of chances_ be supposed, to which the entire mass of atoms has been uniformly subject, or whether the first general throw is thought sufficient, but divided _into an infinity of different sections_, our reason opposes invincible difficulties to the result which some want to draw from these various systems. In short, we must observe, that in order to understand the accidental formation of a world, such as we are at liberty to suppose, the eternal existence of every kind of organized and intelligent atoms, must have preceded the formation of that world. I must again observe, that when they are obliged to such wonderful first principles, and to admit, in the beginning, a nature so astonishing, we can scarcely conceive how they can make it act suddenly a foolish part, in order to finish the work of the universe: a more exalted supposition, would have prevented their drawing a conclusion, so absurd.