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
But supposing for a moment that it was impossible to conceive the work,
without also conceiving the workman, who watches over his work, where
must we place this workman? Shall it be interior or exterior to his
production? Is he matter and motion, or is he only space or the vacuum?
In all these cases either he would be nothing, or he would be contained
in nature: as nature contains only matter and motion, it must be
concluded that the agent who moves it is material; that he is corporeal;
if this agent be exterior to nature, then we can no longer form any
idea of the place which he occupieth: neither can we better conceive an
immaterial being; nor the mode in which a spirit without extent can
act upon matter from which it is separated. These unknown spaces, which
imagination has placed beyond the visible world, can have no existence
for a being, who with difficulty sees down to his feet; he cannot paint
to his mind any image of the power which inhabit them; but if he is
compelled to form some kind of a picture, he must combine at random the
fantastical colours which he is ever obliged to draw from the world he
inhabits: in this case he will really do no more than reproduce in idea,
part or parcels of that which he has actually seen; he will form a whole
which perhaps has no existence in nature, but which it will be in vain
he strives to distinguish from her; to place out of her bosom. When he
shall be ingenuous with himself, When he shall be no longer willing to
delude others, he will be obliged to acknowledge, that the portrait he
has painted, although in its combination it resembles nothing in the
universe, is nevertheless in all its constituent members an exact
delineation of that which nature presents to our view. Hobbes in his
_Leviathan_ says, "The universe, the whole mass of things, is corporeal,
that is to say, body; and hath the dimensions of magnitude, namely,
length, breadth, and depth: also every part of body is likewise body,
and hath the like dimensions; and consequently every part of the
universe is body; and that which is not body, is no part of the
universe; and because the universe is all, that which is no part of it
is nothing; and consequently no where: nor does it follow from hence,
that spirits are nothing, for they have dimensions, and are therefore
really bodies; though that name in common speech be given to such bodies
only as are visible, or palpable, that is, that have some degree of
opacity: but for spirits they call them incorporeal; which is a name
of more honour, and may therefore with more piety be attributed to God
himself, in whom we consider not what attribute expresseth best his
nature, which is incomprehensible; but what best expresseth our desire
to honour him."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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