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discip lee to adopt , terms , without any accurate notion of the meaning of the sign , or any certainty of the existence of the thing signified ; the habit of confining the attention to such views and speculations as have a tendency to confirm a sceptical disposition ; overweening self-confidence , and the
contrary extreme of excessive deference for the opinions of others ; the use of an inappropriate species of argument ; degrading apprehensions of the nature of Deity ; and finally , the carelessness and deadness which are apt to follow a familiarity with those appearances of nature which afford the best proof of the Being : of a God . From some of these causes may be traced the origin of every Atheistical system , from the atomic theory of Epicurus to Hume's medley of inconsistencies . The founders of each sect have been misled by inattention to the indispensable consideration , " Ad veritatem inveniendum , praecipuura est cavisse , ne voces male intellects nobis officiant , quod omnes fere monent
philosophi , pauci observant . " Their disciples have been prejudiced by familiarity with only one side of the question , and by excessive deference to the authority of their teachers ; while all have been encouraged and confirmed in mistakes by the injudicious modes of defence , and the imperfect conceptions , adopted by the advocates of Theism .
There is nothing Atheistical ( however absurd ) in the belief of the eternity of matter . No one of the ancient philosophers appears to have attained to so exalted a conception of the nature and attributes of God as Plato , who declares the world to be necessarily " an Eternal Resemblance of the Eternal Idea . " Aristotle asserted the eternity of the world , not in opposition to the belief of the being , or of the power , wisdom , and goodness of God , but because he fancied that an eternal Cause must produce an eternal Effect . The same doctrine was held by some of the primitive Christians ; and Justin
Martyr informs us that it generally prevailed in his time , quoting Moses as its original propounded The belief arose , no doubt , from the impossibility of conceiving how matter could be created ; men being ever prone to constitute their own conceptions the measure of possibility . It will be time enough , however , for us to assert the impossibility of the creation of matter when we know what matter is , and how it exists . In the mean time , if obliged to admit the eternity of an immaterial existence , it is clearly unphilosophical to assert two eternal existences , when one is sufficient to account for the origin of all others .
Some philosophers , perceiving this , have chosen to reject one of these eternal existences , and , clinging to their difficulty about the creation of matter , have declared the belief in an intelligent Cause to be unnecessary . The question next arises , how matter became moulded into its present forms . According to Leucippus , Democritus , and the Epicurean philosophers , the elements of matter were , in the revolution of ages , by accident , or the laws of an intelligent nature , shaped into their present appearances . This
doctrine has found advocates in almost every age . Whether Hume adopted it , it is not easy to say ; for his systems were almost a 3 various as the moods of thought in which he sat down to favour the world with his speculations . He now declares that , in an infinite series of ages , matter could not but fall into every possible variety of forms , and that therefore the supposition of intelligence is not needed to account for the most delicate organization ; and presently he asserts that ** Chance has no place on any hypothesis , sceptical or religious . " Again , he supposes a Principle of Order inherent in
matter , which , as he says , " at once solves all difficulties ; " and presently , supposes that " the universe may have been , for many ages , in a continued
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Crombie ' s Natural Theology . 147
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1830, page 147, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2582/page/3/
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