Self-existence of Matter.

Some of Epicurus’s apologists should have endeavoured to shew that his impiety was a natural consequence of his doctrine of the eternal existence of matter. There was among the natural philosophers of the heathens, a great variety of opinions about the origin of the world, and the nature of the element, or elements, of which they pretended particular bodies to have been formed. Some maintained that water was the principle of all things, others gave that quality to the air, others to the fire, others to homogenial parts, &c. but they all agreed in this point, that the matter of the world was unproduced. They never

disputed among themselves upon the question whether anything was made out of nothing. They all agreed that this was impossible; and consequently, the independent eternity which Epicurus attributed to atoms, was not an opinion which other sects might condemn with respect to that necessary and uncreated existence; for every one of them ascribed the same nature to the principles they admitted. Now I say, this impiety being once supposed, to wit, that God is not the creator of matter, it is less absurd to maintain, as the Epicureans did, that God was not the author of the world, and did not concern himself with the government of it, than to maintain, as many other philosophers did, that he had formed it, and did both preserve and direct it. What they said was true indeed, but not consistent with their principles. It was an intruding truth which had got into their system, not through the door, but through the window; and if they found themselves in the right way, it was because they went astray from the road they had first entered upon. If they had known how to follow it, they would not have proved orthodox; and therefore that orthodoxy was a bastard and monstrous production, which by chance resulted from their ignorance, and for which they were indebted to their incapacity of reasoning well.

If I should say no more, most of my readers would imagine that I advance as impious a paradox as the doctrine of Epicurus itself. I must therefore explain myself as clearly as possible. According to the system of all the heathen philosophers who believed a God, there was an eternal, uncreated being distinct from God; to wit, matter, which owed its existence to its own nature only, and had no dependance upon any other thing, either as to its essence, existence, attributes, or properties. Therefore it could not be affirmed, without contradicting the laws and notions of order, which are the standing rules of our

judgments and reasonings, that another being has exercised such a great power over matter, as to have made an absolute change in it; consequently those who have advanced, that matter, having eternally existed by itself, without being a world, began to be a world when God was pleased to move it in a thousand different ways; condensing it in one place, ratifying it in another, &c. have advanced a doctrine that shocks the most precise notions, to which those who philosophize are bound to conform themselves. If Epicurus had thus interrogated a Platonic philosopher, pray tell me by what right God has deprived matter of that state wherein it had eternally subsisted? What is his title? Whence has he his commission to make this reform? What could the Platonist have answered? Could he have founded God’s title upon the superior force with which he was endowed? In this case, would he not have made God act according to the law of the strongest, and after the manner of those conquering usurpers, whose conduct is manifestly opposite to right, and which reason and the notions of order represent, to us as unjustifiable? Would he have said, that God being much more perfect than matter, it was just he should subject it to his dominion? but even this clashes with the notions of reason. The most excellent man of a city has no right to make himself master of it, and cannot lawfully govern there, unless that authority be conferred upon him. In short, we know no other lawful title of dominion than that which either the quality of cause, or the quality of benefactor, or that of purchaser, or a voluntary submission, &c, can give. Now nothing of all this can have place between an uncreated matter and the divine nature: therefore we must conclude, that without violating the laws of order, God could not make himself master of that matter, to dispose of it at his will. If you allege what passes between man and other animals, and the dominion he exercises over beasts he has neither produced nor fed, I will answer, that either his wants or his passions, being the basis of that dominion, that cannot serve to make us apprehend how God could assume the command over matter; he who wants nothing, and who finds in himself the whole stock of his infinite felicity; and who is capable of no passion, and cannot do any action that is not perfectly conformable to the strictest justice. A Platonist thus pressed, would be obliged to say, that God exercised his power over matter merely from a principle of goodness. God, would he say, knew perfectly these two things: the one, that he would do nothing against the inclination of matter, by subjecting it to his dominion; for being insensible, it could not be capable of being grieved at the loss of its independency: the other, that it was in a state of confusion and imperfection; a disorderly heap of materials, of which an excellent edifice might be made, and some of which might be converted into living bodies and thinking substances; wherefore he was pleased to communicate to matter a more beautiful and more noble state than that which it was first in. Is’there any thing in this unworthy of a Being sovereignly just and sovereignly good? This, methinks, is the most rational answer a Platonist could make; but I think, at the same time, that Epicurus would desire no better than to see the controversy brought to that issue, which still leave him a great many difficulties to insist upon.

He would ask, in the first place, whether a thing can be capable of a more convenient state than that it has ever been in, and in which it has eternally been placed by its own nature, and the necessity of its existence. Is not such a condition the most natural that can be imagined? Can that want any reformation which has been regulated and determined by the nature of things, and by that necessity to which all that exists by itself owes its existence? Is it not

necessarily to last a whole eternity? And is not this a proof that any reformation would come too late, and consequently would be incompatible with the wisdom of the reformer?

But let us supposé the maxim, “Better late than never; Præstat sero quàm nunquam How will that reformer do to change the state and condition of matter? Must he not produce motion in it? And, in order to that, must he not touch and impel it? If he can touch and impel it, he is not distinct from matter; and if he be not distinct from matter, it is without reason you admit two uncreated beings; the one which you call matter, the other which you call God: for since there is in effect nothing but matter in the universe, our dispute is at an end; the author of the world, the director, the Divine Providence in question, vanishes into smoke. If he be distinct from matter, he has no extension: tell me then how he can apply himself to bodies to drive them out of their places. The Platonist would answer,—that matter was ever in motion, and therefore it was only necessary to direct that motion. But it will be replied, that in order to direct the motion of certain bodies, it is necessary to move others. This appears in the working of a ship, and in all machines: wherefore the divine nature, unless it were material, could with no more ease give a new determination to à motion already existing, than produce motion originally. Aristotle, indeed, has acknowledged the supposition of the eternal motion of matter to be absurd, and solidly confutes Plato, who advanced, that before the formation of the world there was a disorderly agitation in the elements. He convinces him of contradicting himself; and observes in general against those who taught, that the motion that preceded the existence of the world was irregular; that they advanced an absurdity, since the motion which agrees to most things, and for a longer time, ought to be accounted natural; whence it follows, that the

production of the world would rather be an overthrow of the state of nature, than an introduction of the true natural state. But setting aside all these reasons à priori, Epicurus would say in the third place to the Platonist:—I give up the objection, that goodness is not to be commended, unless it be accompanied with judgment.” We might presuppose upon the notion of wisdom, that God could not undertake to remedy the imperfections of matter. He was not answerable for them, since he had no share in the production of bodies, which was the work of nature, and therefore she ought to dispose of it. I give up this argument, would Epicurus say; and I give you leave to make use of the example of those heroes, who have been ranked among the Gods for the great services they have done human kind. Let us however consider in another sense, if the motives of goodness you mention ought not to have been overruled by reasons of wisdom. A wise agent never undertakes to employ a great heap of materials, without having first well examined their qualities, and being assured that they are susceptible of the form he designs to give them; and if, upon examining their qualities, he finds that they have incorrigible faults, which would render their new condition worse than the former, he will not meddle with them, but abandon them to themselves; and judges, that he will act with more wisdom and goodness in leaving things as he finds them, than in giving them another form which would become pernicious. Now you Platonists agree, that there has been in matter a real defect, which was an obstacle to God’s project; an obstacle, I say, which has not permitted God to make a world free from those disorders we perceive in it: and it is certain, on the other side, that those disorders render the condition of matter infinitely more unhappy than that eternal, necessary, and independent state in which it had been before the generation of the world. All was insensible in that state: grief, pain, crime, all physical and moral evils, were then unknown. It is true, there was no pleasure felt; but that privation of good was not an evil; since it cannot be so, but as it is felt and lamented. You see therefore that it did not become a wise and good being to change the condition of matter, to transform it into such a world as this is. It contained in its bosom the seeds of all the crimes and miseries we now behold; but those were unfruitful seeds, and in that state they did no more harm than if they had not existed; nor were they pernicious and fatal, till after the animals were hatched out of them by the formation of the world. Thus, matter was a Camarina See Erasmus upon the proverb, Movere Camarinam. It is the sixty-fourth of the first century of the first Chiliad. ¹³ which should not have been stirred; it should have been left in its eternal rest; well remembering, that the more one stirs a noxious matter, the more it spreads its infection round. We must not doubt that the divine nature has acted by this notion; and therefore it is not die divine nature which has made the world.

It could not be answered to this reasoning of Epicurus, that God did not foresee the malignity of the souls that should be hatched out of those seeds of matter: for he would presently reply, that thereby we should ascribe to God such an ignorance as would have had ill consequences; that at least God would have restored things to their former state, after he had seen the ill effects of his work; and so the world would not have lasted till the time when he, Epicurus, disputed with a Platonist about the doctrine of Providence.

His last objection would be the strongest: he would shew to his adversary, that the most intimate, general, and infallible notion we have of God is, that God enjoys perfect felicity. Now this is incompatible with the supposition of Providence: for if he

govern the world, he created it; if he created it, he has either foreseen all the disorders that are in it, or he has not foreseen them. If he have foreseen them, it cannot be said that he made the world out of a principle of goodness; which destroys the best answer of the Platonist. If he have not foreseen them, it is impossible that, seeing the ill success of his work, he should not have been extremely grieved at it: he would have been convinced that he had not known the quality of the materials, or had wanted power to overcome their resistance, as without doubt he hoped to have done. There is no workman that can see without grief his hopes baffled, that he has missed his aim, and that having designed to work for the public good, he had made a pernicious machine, &c. We have indeed some ideas, whereby we know that this can never be God’s case; but we have none whereby to know, that, if by an impossibility it was his case, he were not to be pitied, and most unhappy.

If we suppose afterwards, that instead of destroying such a work, he obstinately resolves to preserve it, and continually to be employed either in mending its faults, or preventing their increase; we require an idea of the most unhappy nature that can be conceived. He designed to build a magnificent palace for the accommodation of animated creatures, which were to come out of the shapeless bosom of matter, and there to bestow felicity upon them; but it happens that those creatures devour one another, being incapable to continue alive, if the flesh of some did not serve as food to others. It happens that the most perfect of those animals do not spare even the flesh of those of his kind; there happen to be cannibals among them; and those who abstain from that brutality, do not forbear persecuting one another, and are a prey to envy, jealousy, fraud, avarice, cruelty, diseases, cold, heat, hunger, &c.

Their author struggling continually with the malignity of the matter productive of those disorders, and obliged to have always the thunderbolt in his hand, and to pour down upon the earth pestilence, war, and famine; which, with the wheels and gibbets with which highways abound, do not hinder evil from maintaining itself. Can the author of all this be looked upon as a happy being? Can he be happy, when at the end of four thousand years’ labour he has made no farther progress in his work than the first day he undertook it, although he passionately desires to finish it? Is not this image of infelicity as lively as Ixion’s wheel, the stone of Sisyphus, and the tub of the Danaides?

I say nothing but what is very likely, when I suppose that Epicurus persuaded himself that the gods would soon have repented the having made the world; and that the trouble of governing so indocile and refractory an animal as man, would disturb their felicity. Do we not see in the Scripture, that the true God, accommodating himself to our capacity, has revealed himself as a Being, who, having known the malice of man, repented and was sorry he had created him, and as a Being who is provoked, and complaining of the ill success of his labour? He says to Israel, “All the day long I have stretched forth my bands unto a disobedient and gainsaying people.” I know well enough that the same book which teaches us all these things teaches us likewise how to rectify the idea they present to us at first sight; but Epicurus, destitute as he was of the light of revelation, could not rectify philosophy, and must of necessity follow the path which such a guide shewed him. Now, faithfully pursuing this track, and supported by these two principles; one, that matter was self-existent, and suffered not itself to be managed according to God’s desire; the other, that the felicity of God cannot admit the least disturbance; he must have rested in this

conclusion, that there is no Divine Providence. We shall thence draw some consequences advantageous to the truth of the Christian religion. Epicurus’s objections, which have been set forth in the preceding remark, and which were sufficient to nonplus the heathen philosophers, disappear and vanish away like smoke, with respect to those whom revelation has taught, “that God is the Creator of the World, both as to its matter and to its form.” From God’s being the creator of matter, it results, that with the most lawful authority that can be, he disposes of the universe as he thinks fit; that he needs only a single act of his will to do whatever he pleases; that nothing happens but what he has placed in the plan of his work. It follows also, that the conduct of the world is not an employment that can either fatigue or trouble God, and that no events whatsoever can disturb his felicity. If some things happen which he has forbidden, and which he punishes, they do not however happen contrary to his decrees, and they are subservient to the ends he has proposed to himself from all eternity, and which are the greatest mysteries of the gospel.. But the better to know the importance of the doctrine of the creation, we must also cast our eyes upon the inextricable difficulties in which they involve themselves who deny it. Consider therefore what Epicurus might have objected to the Platonist, as we have seen before, and what may be said nowadays against the Socinians. They have rejected the Evangelical mysteries, because they could not reconcile them with the light of reason. They would have contradicted themselves, if they had agreed that God created matter: for this philosophical axiom, “Ex nihilo nihil fit—nothing is made out of nothing,” is as evident as the principles by virtue of which they have denied the Trinity and the Hypostatic union. They have therefore denied the creation; but what have they got by it? Why, the falling into one abyss by avoiding another; having been obliged to acknowledge the independent existence of matter, and at the same time to submit it to the authority of another being. They have been forced to own, that necessary existence may belong to a substance which is besides full of defects and imperfections; and this destroys a most evident notion, to wit, that what is eternally and independently self-existent, ought to be infinitely perfect; for what could have set bounds to the power and attributes of such a being? In short, they must answer most of the difficulties, which I have supposed Epicurus might have proposed to the philosophers who admitted the eternity of matter. Hence we may infer, that it is very advantageous to the Christian religion, to shew that the eternity of matter draws after it the destruction of Divine Providence. By this means we imply the necessity, truth, and certainty of the creation.

I am sure that one of the greatest philosophers of this age, and at the same time one of the most zealous writers for the doctrines of the gospel, will agree, that by making an apology for Epicurus, such as we have seen it ex hypothesi in the preceding remark, we do the true faith no small service. He teaches not only that there would be no providence, if God had not created matter, but even that God would not know that there is matter, if it were uncreated. I shall cite his words at large, wherein the Socinians will find their condemnation: “How stupid and ridiculous philosophers are! They imagine the creation to be impossible, because they do not perceive the power of God to be so great as to make something out of nothing. But can they conceive how God’s power is able to move a straw? If they consider it well, they conceive not the one more clearly than the other, since they have no clear idea of efficacy or power; insomuch that if they followed their false principle, they ought to affirm, that God wants even the power to give

motion to matter. But this false conclusion would engage them in such impertinent and impious opinions, that they would soon become the objects of the contempt and indignation even of the least understanding persona; for they would soon be reduced to maintain, that there is no motion or change in the world; or else, that all those changes are not produced by any cause, or regulated by wisdom.... If matter were uncreated, God could neither move it, nor form any thing out of it; for God can neither move matter, nor wisely dispose of it, without knowing it. Now God cannot know it, unless He give existence to it: for God can have no knowledge of any thing but from Himself. Nothing can act in Him, or enlighten Him. Therefore, if God did not see in Himself and by the knowledge He has of His will, the existence of matter, it would have been eternally unknown to Him. He could not therefore dispose it into order, or form any work out of it. Now philosophers agree, as well as you, that God Can move bodies; and hence, though they have no clear idea of power or efficacy; though they see no connexion between the will of God and the productions of creatures, they ought to acknowledge that God has created matter, unless they mean to make Him impotent and ignorant; which is corrupting the idea we have of Him, and denying his existence.” Father Mallebranche, Méditations Chrétiennes, ix. Meditation, n. 3. pag. m. 140, 141, 142. ¹⁴

Before I end, I will make another observation. I have made Epicurus speak against a Platonic philosopher, which was not making the most of his advantages; for he would have confuted all the other sects much more easily than that of Plato. His greatest advantage would have been to dispute with a priest. Let us give a specimen of it. Let us suppose that Epicurus exclaims, “You call me impious, because I teach that the gods do not meddle with the government of the world; and I charge you with not

knowing how to reason, and, besides, with doing the. gods a great injury. Is it consonant with the light of reason, to believe that Jupiter has an absolute power over the universe; he who is son of Saturn, and grandson to heaven? Is it for an upstart deity, as he was, to govern matter, which is an eternal and independent being? Know, that whatever has a beginning, is as new as what was done yesterday and to-day, in comparison of eternity. Do not therefore subvert all order, by subjecting the matter of the universe to so young a god. Let us come to the other point: answer me, pray; are the gods pleased with their administration, or not? Mind well my dilemma: If they be pleased with what happens under their providence, then they delight in evil; if they be displeased with it, then they are unhappy. Now it clashes with common notions, that they should love what is evil, and that they should not be happy. They do not like evil, would the priest answer; nay, they look upon it as a great offence, which they punish severely; and hence proceed plagues, wars, famines, shipwrecks, inundations, &c. I conclude from your answer, would Epicurus reply, that they are unhappy; for nothing can make one’s life more unhappy than to be continually exposed to injuries, and continually obliged to revenge them. Sin never ceases among men; therefore there is not one moment in the day wherein the gods have not some affronts put upon them. The plague, war, and the other evils you have mentioned, never cease upon earth; for if they end from time to time in one country, they never cease with respect to all nations; and so the gods have no sooner taken revenge of one nation, but they must begin to punish another: their work is never at an end. What a life is this! could one wish a greater torment to a mortal enemy? I had much rather attribute to them a quiet condition, void of care. But suppose the priest should say that they see the disorders of mankind unconcerned, and without endeavouring to redress them—does this indifference do them much credit? Are they not younger than the heaven? would Epicurus reply; do not you say that the most ancient of the gods, who reigns at present, accounts the heaven his grandfather? They did not then make the world; and therefore it is not for them to concern themselves with what passes upon earth, or elsewhere. They know that matter exists from all eternity, and that the fatal necessity of self-existing beings cannot be changed: they therefore let the stream run on, and do not undertake to reform an immutable order. Neither ought we to wonder that their perfections are limited, since you confess that those of matter, which exists eternally, are very small. Your Jupiter, and his assistants in the celestial council, have little reason to pretend to punish lewdness; since they themselves are so unfaithful to their wives, and have deflowered so many virgins. You cannot deny, however, (would the priest answer) but the doctrine of providence is of great force to keep the people in their duty. That is not the point in question now, would Epicurus reply: do not change the state of our dispute. We seek not what may have been established as a useful invention, but that which truly flows from the light of reason. Art. Epicurus.