The System of Nature, or, the Laws of the Moral and Physical World. Volume 2Holbach, Paul Henri Thiry, baron d'
Religion
The System of Nature, or, the Laws of the Moral and Physical World. Volume 2
Holbach, Paul Henri Thiry, baron d'
Materialism; Philosophy and religion; Psychology
"God is one," continues Newton, "and he is the same for ever, and every
where, not only by his virtue alone, or by his energy, but also by his
substance." But how are we to conceive that a being who is in continual
activity, who produces all the changes which beings undergo, can always
be himself the same? What is to be understood by either this virtue or
this energy? These are relative terms, which do not present any clear,
distinct idea to our mind, except as they apply to man: what are we,
however, to understand by the divine substance? If this substance be
spiritual, that is, devoid of extent, how can there exist in it any
parts? How can it give impulse to matter, how set it in motion? How can
it even be conceived by mortals?
Nevertheless Newton informs us, "that all things are contained in him,
and are moved in him, but without reciprocity of action: God experiences
nothing by the motion of bodies; these experience no resistance whatever
by his omnipresence." It would here appear that he clothes the Divinity
with that which bears the character of vacuum--of nothing; without
that, it would be almost impossible not to have a reciprocal action
or relation between these substances, which are either penetrated or
encompassed on all sides. It must be obvious, that in this instance our
scientific author does not distinctly understand himself.
He proceeds, "It is an incontestible truth, that God exists necessarily,
and the same necessity obliges to exist always and every where: from
whence it follows, that he is in every thing similar to itself; he is
all eyes, all ears, all brains, all arms, all feeling, all intelligence,
all action; but in a mode by no means human, by no means corporeal, and
which is totally unknown to us. In the same manner as a blind man has
no idea of colours, it is that we have no idea of the mode in which
God feels and understands." The necessary existence of the Divinity
is precisely the thing in question; it is this existence that it was
needful to have verified by proofs as clear, by evidence as distinct, by
demonstration as strong, as gravitation and attraction. One would have
hardly thought it possible the expansive capabilities of Newton
would not have compassed it. But oh, unrivalled genius! so mighty,
so powerful, so colossal, while yet you was a geometrician; so
insignificant, so weak, so inconsistent; when you became a theologian;
that is to say, when you reasoned upon that which can neither be
calculated, nor submitted to experience; how could you think of speaking
to us on a subject which, by your own confession is to you just what a
picture is to a man born blind? Wherefore quit nature, which had already
explained to you so much? Why seek in imaginary spaces those causes,
those powers, that energy, which she would have distinctly pointed
out to you, had you been willing to have consulted her with your usual
sagacity? The gigantic, the intelligent Newton, suffers himself to be
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