been that eternal thing, should have disposed philosophers to the early adoption of such a tenet. It was, in fact, an extensive opinion among the ancients, and has been the chief resource of modern atheists.

In the statement of the system there are some shades of difference. Aristotle, for example, whilst he held that the world was neither produced, nor is capable of corruption, but is one and everlasting, acknowledged, at the same time, the necessity of some intervening power, to give motion to that which is itself inert and immovable. The generality of the followers* of this system, however, have maintained, in the words of the ancient philosopher, that God, the active and efficient cause, and matter, are so essentially united, as to be one and the same; or,

* Ocellus Lucanus, if his jargon deserves the name of system: Zeno afterwards more clearly; who was followed, with some shades of verbal difference, by the Eleatics and Peripatetics: Pliny, lib. ii. cap. 1, very explicitly: and Spinoza, with most of the modern atheists.

+ Diog. Laert. lib. vii.

according to his modern disciple,* that there is only one substance in nature, endued with infinite attributes, and, amongst them, with extension and thought.

The present age does not so much require to be set free from error, as to be reminded of truth. We should be ill employed in dragging from their obscurity the doctrines of Spinoza, in order to employ against them at any length the arguments by which the reasoners of his own time either demonstrated the falsehood of his premises, or the absurdity of his conclusions.† Professing to clear from its difficulties the received system of theology, he introduced his own with axioms which shock our reason, and directly oppose our natural judgment.‡ It will only be necessary to hint concisely at a few of the absurd conclusions to which his

*

Spinoza. See Bayle, vol. v. p. 299.

+ Particularly Clarke, in answer to Spinoza; and Sykes on Natural and Revealed Religion, in answer to Toland, who adopted the same system, under the title of The Pantheistic Scheme.

Bayle, vol. v. p. 212.

principles lead, in order to show that we are justified in looking farther than the hypothesis of the world's eternity for a satisfactory explanation of its present existence.

I. The notion which our senses present to us respecting the world, leads us to consider it as consisting of an infinite number of parts, subservient, perhaps, to one another, and to a certain degree mutually dependent, but still, as existences, perfectly and essentially distinct; collected, as a number of individuals may be collected together; but not united, as the members of the same individual. Those, however, who argue for the eternity of the world, comprehend all this infinite variety of parts, in one sole, universal, and eternal substance. If by substance they here understand merely the imaginary support of the numerous attributes and qualities which are found in the world, substance is manifestly not a real existence, but an abstract term; of which, as it has no archetype in nature, it is impossible for us to form any accurate or definite idea.

But the system involves, at least, this absurdity; that whatever can be affirmed or denied of any of the parts of this compound substance, must be affirmed or denied of the whole; and, whatever can be suffered or felt by any of the parts, must be felt and suffered by the whole; must equally affect God and man, bodies organized or unorganized, animate or inanimate matter. Such consequences could never be admitted by any reasonable being; and such premises could never have been laid down, except under shelter of the ambiguities of language, which sometimes renders substance an abstract term, coined for the convenience of the understanding, and sometimes gives it a real existence as body.*

II. When, however, we have proceeded so far as to conceive the universe as one individual substance, the attributes with which it must

* This remark is sufficiently justified by the observation of Hobbes so frequently quoted :-" Incorporeal substance, are words, which, when joined together, destroy each other." An observation, solely founded on the ambiguity of the word substance.

be endowed will be no less embarrassing than its first existence. For, it is too plain to be denied, that whatever we find to exist, must be derived from the independent Being that existed from eternity. It follows, that this independent Being must either have possessed in himself whatever exists, or must have had the power of producing it. We find, however, sense and motion to exist; and if that eternal

thing is the world itself, there is no other source to which we can refer the orfgin of sense and motion.

Now, without attempting to define matter or mind, and only taking the evidence of our senses for the existence of the former, it is surely safe to affirm that we find in ourselves, and observe in other animals, in some in an equal, in others in an inferior degree, a power of sensation and reflection, and a power of moving ourselves and other things. We find in the world other bodies, which are to all appearance entirely without the sensitive or reflecting power, and are certainly incapable