Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB

ever, our possession of the ability to form a clear notion of it.

We are told of infinite space-what is space? Is it a being, or nothing at all?

If it is a being, what is its nature? You cannot tell me. If it is nothing, nothing can have no quality; yet you tell me that it is penetrable and immense. I am so embarrassed, I cannot correctly call it either something or nothing.

In the meantime, I know not of anything which possesses more properties than a void. For if passing the confines of this globe we are able to walk amidst this void, and thatch and build there when we possess materials for the purpose, this void or nothing is not opposed to whatever we might chuse to do; for having no property it cannot hinder any; moreover, since it cannot hinder, neither can it serve us.

It is pretended that God created the world amidst nothing and from nothing. That is abstruse; it is preferable to think that there is an infinite space; but we are curious-and if there be infinite space, our faculties cannot fathom the nature of it. We call it immense, because we cannot measure it; but what then? We have only pronounced words.

Of the Infinite in Number.

We have adroitly defined the infinite in arithmetic by a love-knot, in this manner; but we possess not therefore a clearer notion of it. This infinity is not like the others, a powerlessness of reaching a termination. We call the infinite in quantity any number soever, which surpasses the utmost number we are able to imagine.

When we seek the infinitely small, we divide, and call that infinitely small which is less than the least assignable quantity. It is only another name for incapacity.

Is Matter infinitely divisible?

This question brings us back again precisely to our inability of finding the remotest number. In thought

VOL. IV.

we are able to divide a grain of sand, but in imagination only; and the incapacity of eternally dividing this grain is called infinity.

It is true, that matter is not always practically divisible, and if the last atom could be divided into two, it would no longer be the least; or if the least it would not be divisible; or if divisible, what is the germ or origin of things? These are abstruse queries.

Of the Universe.

Is the universe bounded-is its extent immense are the suns and planets without number? What advantage has the space which contains suns and planets, over the space which is void of them. Whether space be an existence or not, why is the space which we occupy, preferable to other space?

If our material heaven be not infinite, it is but a point in general extent. If it is infinite, it be an infinity to which something can always be added by the imagination.

Of the Infinite in Geometry.

We admit, in geometry, not only infinite magnitudes, that is to say, magnitudes greater than any assignable magnitude, but infinite magnitudes infinitely greater, the one than the other. This astonishes our dimension of brains, which is only about six inches long, five broad, and six in depth, in the largest heads. It means, however, nothing more than that a square larger than any assignable square, surpasses a line larger than any assignable line, and bears no proportion to it.

It is a mode of operating, a mode of working geometrically, and the word infinite is a mere symbol.

Of Infinite Power, Wisdom, Goodness, &c.

In the same manner, as we cannot form any positive idea of the infinite in duration, number, and extension, are we unable to form one in respect to physical and moral power.

We can easily conceive, that a powerful being has modified matter, caused worlds to circulate in space,

and formed animals, vegetables, and metals. We are led to this idea by the perception of the want of power on the part of these beings to form themselves. We are also forced to allow, that the Great Being exists eternally by his own power, since he cannot have sprung from nothing; but we discover not so easily his infinity in magnitude, power, and moral attributes.

How are we to conceive infinite extent in a being called simple? and if he be uncompounded, what notions can we form of a simple being? We know God by his works, but we cannot understand him by

his nature.

If it is evident that we cannot understand his nature, is it not equally so, that we must remain ignorant of his attributes?

When we say that his power is infinite, do we mean anything more than that it is very great? Aware of the existence of pyramids of the height of 600 feet, we can conceive them of the altitude of 600,000 feet.

Nothing can limit the power of the Eternal Being existing necessarily of himself. Agreed: no antagonists circumscribe him; but how convince me that he is not circumscribed by his own nature?

Has all that has been said on this great subject been demonstrated?

We speak of his moral attributes, but we only judge of them by our own; and it is impossible to do otherwise. We attribute to him justice, goodness, &c. only from the ideas we collect from the small degree of justice and goodness existing among ourselves.

But, in fact, what connection is there between our qualities so uncertain and variable, and those of the Supreme Being?

Our idea of justice is only that of not allowing our own interest to usurp over the interest of another. The bread which a wife has kneaded out of the flour produced from the wheat which her husband has sown, belongs to her. A hungry savage snatches away her bread, and the woman exclaims against such enormous injustice. The savage quietly answers, that nothing is

more just, and that it was not for him and his family to expire of famine for the sake of an old woman.

At all events, the infinite justice we attribute to God can but little resemble the contradictory notions of jus tice of this woman and this savage; and yet, when we say that God is just, we only pronounce these words agreeably to our own ideas of justice.

We know of nothing belonging to virtue more agreeable than frankness and cordiality, but to attribute infinite frankness and cordiality to God would amount to an absurdity.

We have such confused notions of the attributes of the Supreme Being, that some schools endow him with prescience, an infinite foresight which excludes all contingent event, while other schools contend for prescience without contingency.

Lastly, since the Sorbonne has declared that God can made a stick divested of two ends, and that the same thing can at once be and not be, we know not what to say, being in eternal fear of advancing a heresy.

One thing may however be asserted without danger, -that God is infinite, and man exceedingly bounded.

The mind of man is so extremely narrow, that Pascal has said: "Do you believe it impossible for God to be infinite and without parts? I wish to convince you of an existence infinite and indivisible, it is a mathematical point-moving everywhere with infinite swiftness, for it is in all places, and entire in every place."

Nothing more absurd was ever asserted, and yet it has been said by the author of the Provincial Letters. It is sufficient to give men of sense the ague.

INFLUENCE.

EVERY thing around exercises some influence upon us, either physically or morally. With this truth we are well acquainted.

Influence may be exerted upon a being without touching, without moving that being.

In short, matter has been demonstrated to possess the astonishing power of gravitating without contact, of acting at immense distances.

One idea influences another; a fact not less incomprehensible.

I have not with me at Mount Krapac the book intitled "On the Influence of the Sun and Moon," composed by the celebrated physician Mead; but I well know, that those two bodies are the cause of the tides; and it is not in consequence of touching the waters of the ocean that they produce that flux and reflux: it is demonstrated that they produce them by the laws of gravitation.

But when we are in a fever, have the sun and moon any influence upon the accesses of it, in its days of crisis? Is your wife constitutionally disordered only during the first quarter of the moon? Will the trees,

cut at the time of full moon, rot sooner than if eut down in its wane? Not that I know. But timber cut down while the sap is circulating in it, undergoes putrefaction sooner than other timber; and if by chance it is cut down at the full moon, men will certainly say it was the full moon that caused all the evil.

Your wife may have been disordered during the moon's growing; but your neighbour's was so in its decline.

The fitful periods of the fever which you brought upon yourself by indulging too much in the pleasures of the table, occur about the first quarter of the moon; your neighbour experiences his in its decline.

Everything that can possibly influence animals and vegetables must of course necessarily exercise that influence while the moon is making her circuit.

Were a woman of Lyons to remark that the periodical affections of her constitution had occurred in three or four successive instances on the day of the arrival of the diligence from Paris, would her medical attendant, however devoted he might be to system, think himself authorised in concluding that the Paris dili

« AnteriorContinua »