Imatges de pàgina
PDF
EPUB
[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small]

On the Opinion of the Eternity of the
World.

Ir appeared to Hume that Milton has justly represented Adam, when rising at once, in Paradise, and in the full perfection of his senses, as astonished at the glorious appearances of nature, the heaven, the air, the earth, his own organs and members; and led by the contemplation of them to ask, whence this wonderful scene arose*? And it is somewhat curious, that an ancient philosopher, in a well-known

* Natural History of Religion, sect. 1.

[blocks in formation]

passage of similar tendency, has furnished us with the answer which the scene would suggest to him: "If it were possible that persons who had long lived in subterraneous habitations, and had enjoyed only a vague report of the existence and power of the gods, should suddenly emerge into the light and lustre of the world we inhabit, they would no sooner behold the earth, and sea, and sky, or understand the regular order of the seasons and the vastness of the heavenly bodies, than they would at once acknowledge both the existence of superior powers, and that these wonders were of their creation*."

This seems reasonable; and yet, if it is so, whence comes Atheism? and why have not these wonders uniformly had the effect of leading mankind to the discovery and contemplation of the Supreme Being?

It may afford some explanation of this, to observe, that mankind do not rise, like

* Quoted by Cicero, Nat. Deor. ii. 37; as if from Aristotle. If the fragment were really from a work of Aristotle, it could not originally have been intended to convey his own sentiments.

Adam, in Paradise, in the full perfection of their faculties. The magnificent fabric of the universe which is before our eyes from our infancy, and gradually comprehended as the intellect expands, loses its effect upon the mind; but would strike us with irresistible conviction, if all the beauty, variety, and regularity of the world opened upon us at once, when the powers of the understanding were capable of appreciating them. To a certain degree, this may account for the indifference with which mankind in all ages have been apt to survey the wonderful scene around them, and their relation to its Author.

There are many ages during which we have little record left of the progress of the human mind. But according to the earliest writings we have received from Greece, the country with which we are best acquainted, it does not appear that for a length of time, the beings which were termed Gods were considered otherwise than as parts of the general system; or that any notion had been attained of a Creator, upon whose fiat the universe depended. Nor ought we to wonder that men, in that

rude period of civilization, should not have been led to form rational ideas of a Creator from the works of the creation; it it is an inference which the great mass of mankind would never draw, if left to their own reflections. Simple as the analogical reasoning from effect to cause, from contrivance to a contriver, may seem, still it is reasoning, and, as such, it is the business of a mind in some degree improved, and abstracted from sensible objects. In the first stages of society there are no such minds; and it is no more surprising that, by the great body of mankind in every age, the world is seen and inhabited without exciting awe and admiration, than that a peasant who finds himself placed by the fortune of his birth in any particular country, should be little solicitous about its history, antiquity, or earliest founders.

As soon, however, as the progress of civilization had improved reason, and given opportunity for reflection, the existence and origin of the world presented the first and most interesting object of inquiry. The earliest sages that we hear of as engaged at all in philosophical speculation, turned

their attention to physics, and the explanation of the appearance of the natural world*. It was then that the question was first started, How, at whose order, and to what end, this universe derived its form and being a question which proved the most fruitful theme of disputation among the ancient philosophers; which, even in the dark ages, however frivolous the per plexities to which it gave rise, still served to keep alive the spark of ratiocination; and which, since the revival of literature, has employed alike the pen of authors most distinguished for wit and learning, for genius and logical precision.

To this interesting problem, one of the three following answers must necessarily be returned;

I. Either the world must have existed from eternity the same;

II. Or it was formed by chance, at some unassigned period, out of pre-existing materials;

* See Adam Smith's account of this, Wealth of Na tions, vol. iii. book v. chap. 1. Also Stewart's Essays, Prelim. Dissert. xxiii.

« AnteriorContinua »