one of the infinite combinations of atoms which chance has successively made, has formed all these compositions in this desert island without the help of any man’s art;” for such an assertion is a natural consequence of the principles of the Epicureans.  But the very absurdity of the consequence serves to expose the extravagance of the principle they lay down.  When men, by the natural rectitude of their common sense, conclude that such sort of works cannot result from chance, they visibly suppose, though in a confused manner, that atoms are not eternal, and that in their fortuitous concourse they had not an infinite succession of combinations.  For if that principle were admitted, it would no longer be possible ever to distinguish the works of art from those that should result from those combinations as fortuitous as a throw at dice.

Sect.  LXXVI.  The Epicureans confound the Works of Art with those of Nature.

All men who naturally suppose a sensible difference between the works of art and those of chance do consequently, though but implicitly, suppose that the combinations of atoms were not infinite—­which supposition is very just.  This infinite succession of combinations of atoms is, as I showed before, a more absurd chimera than all the absurdities some men would explain by that false principle.  No number, either successive or continual, can be infinite; from whence it follows that the number of atoms cannot be infinite, that the succession of their various motions and combinations cannot be infinite, that the world cannot be eternal, and that we must find out a precise and fixed beginning of these successive combinations.  We must recur to a first individual in the generations of every species.  We must likewise find out the original and primitive form of every particle of matter that makes a part of the universe.  And as the successive changes of that matter must be limited in number, we must not admit in those different combinations but such as chance commonly produces; unless we acknowledge a Superior Being, who with the perfection of art made the wonderful works which chance could never have made.

Sect.  LXXVII.  The Epicureans take whatever they please for granted, without any Proof.

The Epicurean philosophers are so weak in their system that it is not in their power to form it, or bring it to bear, unless one admits without proofs their most fabulous postulata and positions.  In the first place they suppose eternal atoms, which is begging the question; for how can they make out that atoms have ever existed and exist by themselves?  To exist by one’s self is the supreme perfection.  Now, what authority have they to suppose, without proofs, that atoms have in themselves a perfect, eternal, and immutable being?  Do they find this perfection in the idea they have of every atom in particular?  An atom not being the same with, and being absolutely distinguished from, another atom, each of them must have in itself eternity and independence with respect to any other being.  Once more, is it in the idea these philosophers have of each atom that they find this perfection?  But let us grant them all they suppose in this question, and even what they ought to be ashamed to suppose—­viz., that atoms are eternal, subsisting by themselves, independent from any other being, and consequently entirely perfect.