that this duration will also be made up of successive parts; and that, of course, there may be an infinite duration made up of successive parts: I answer, that there is a total difference between these cases. In the former the supposed infinite duration is completed: in the latter, it will never be completed. It is true, that Saints and Angels will never cease to be: but it will never be true, that they have lived infinitely, or through an infinite duration. An endless addition of parts may be supposed; but an infinite sum of parts, which have actually had existence, is a self-contradiction.

3. It is justly observed by the learned and acute Dr. Bentley, that, in the supposed infinite series, as the number of individual men is alleged to be infinite; the number of their eyes must be twice, the number of their fingers ten times, and the number of the hairs on their heads many thousand times, as great as the number of men.

What then must be the number of the hairs on the bodies of animals; of leaves on the trees, and of blades of grass on the earth? According to this supposition then, there is an almost endless multitude of numbers, greater, and many of them incalculably, than an infinite number. To such palpable absurdities are we reduced by supposing an infinite succession.

4. It is also observed by the same excellent Writer, that all these generations of men were once present. One of the individuals, viz. the first, existed at an infinite distance from us. His son, who may be supposed to have been forty years younger, was either at an infinite, or at a finite, distance from us. If at an infinite, then the infinite distance of his father was forty years longer than the infinite distance of the son. If the son was at a finite distance from us, then forty years, added to a finite distance, will make it infinite.

It is unnecessary, that I should dwell any longer on this complication of folly.

The same arguments are, with the same force, applicable to all possible successions. Every succession is in its nature made up of parts, each of which has a beginning.

Of course

we see intuitively, that the whole has had a beginning. The only subject, on which rests even a seeming obscurity

Some per

in this respect, is what is called continued motion. sons have considered motion of this kind, such for example as that of the Planets, as not being successive; because when viewed in the gross, the successive parts were not separable by the human mind. Divide the circuit, as a wheel is divided by its cogs, or teeth; or fix upon a number of stars, by which the planet shall successively pass; and the delusion, occasioned by the continuity of the parts, will vanish in a moment. will be scen of course, and with perfect distinctness, that motion, in all its forms, is as truly a succession of changes, as successive thought, or successive being.

It

II. Atheists assert, that the existence of things is casual. In this assertion the connection between cause and effect, and the very existence of causation, are denied, so far as the production of being is concerned. All beings are supposed not to have been produced, or caused, but to have happened: their existence being supposed to be a mere contingency. Some, perhaps most of those, who have adopted this system, have however at the same time believed matter to be eternal. On this scheme of existence I observe,

1. That it is a mere hypothesis, unsupported by any evidence whatever. The doctrine of casual, or contingent existence, precludes all reasoning by its very nature. The very demand of a reason from him who adopts it, is itself an absurdity; because he declares to you in the very nature of the doctrine, that neither the existence, nor the doctrine, admits of the application of any reason. Of course, the fact, that existence has happened in any case, is in its own nature capable of being evidenced only by testimony, and of this evidence it is in fact incapable, because no witness was ever present at such a contingency. The doctrine, therefore, stands on exactly the same ground with that of all other mere assumptions; such as, that the soul of man is blue, or triangular; that the inhabitants of Jupiter walk with their heads downward; or that the Sun is a body of melted glass.

2: The abettors of this doctrine have, in their endeavours to form a system, founded on it, been driven, unavoidably, into a continued succession of absurdities.

Epicurus, the principal vender of this system, supposed, that innumerable solid atoms existed from eternity in infinite

space; that they were of different sizes and figures, and were all separated from each other; and that they were originally quiescent, or motionless. When it was objected, that they must, then, have remained for ever motionless; he invented for them a conatus ad motum; an endeavour, or tendency, towards motion; which he declares to have been inherent in them eternally. When it was objected, that unless they were moved eternally by this conatus, they could never have moved at all; he avoided this difficulty by determining, that they had moved from eternity, in parallel directions. It was objected again, that with this motion they would never have approached any nearer to each other. To escape this difficulty, he gave them a motion, in a small degree oblique. The cause of their motion he declares to be their weight; and their direction to be downward: not knowing, that there is no weight, where there is no attracting body; and that every direction towards the centre of the earth is downward. I will not pursue this mass of absurdities any farther; and will only observe, that those who have followed him, have not rendered the system a whit better than they found it.

3. The actual state of things is a complete refutation of this doctrine.

Regularity is a direct and perfect proof of the absence of casualty in the formation of that in which the regularity exists; and the whole system of things is, in its parts, and their union in a whole, one immense and multiform system of regularity.

The twenty-four letters of the alphabet, small as the number is, are proved arithmetically to be capable of more than six hundred thousand millions of billions of different horizontal arrangements. Were they to be thrown up into the air, and to fall in any supposed order, the chances against their falling, a second time, in the same order are at least as great a number, as that which has been specified; and just so many chances exist against their falling in any given position.

In the human frame there are probably more than a million of parts, greater and smaller; all of which we behold united in a perfect and most regular system. The relative horizontal positions only, of which these are capable, must be expressed by more than a million of arithmetical figures; their vertical and oblique positions must be expressed by several millions

more; and all these combined, must be expressed by the multiplication of these immense sums with each other. The chances, therefore, against such an union of the parts of the human body, as actually exists, even after we suppose the several parts actually formed, would be such as would be expressed by this aggregate of figures: a number which all the human race, who have existed since the Mosaic date of the creation, would not have been able to count, had they busied themselves in no other employment during their lives. In addition to this, the number of chances against the original formation of these parts is immensely greater, than against the fact of their coming together. Nor are we yet at the end of the climax for we perfectly well know, that if all the parts were actually and perfectly formed, they could neither put themselves together, nor be united by any human skill or labour, however long employed. Beyond all this, if they were all formed, and all perfectly united, so as to constitute exactly, both within and without, a human frame, it would still be a mere corpse, without life or motion. Were we to admit still further, that the frame thus formed, might become possessed of life, it would yet be destitute of a soul, and therefore infinitely distant from the intelligent being, whom we call Man.

All these difficulties must be surmounted, a second time, in order to the existence of mankind; one of each sex being originally and absolutely necessary to the existence of succeeding generations. In the same manner, the same process must be repeated, in order to the production of every kind of animals; and in most cases in order to the production of the kinds of trees, shrubs, and plants.

He who can believe this system, can believe any thing; and his faith must undoubtedly be the nearest approximation to casualty, which has been hitherto recorded in the history of man.

The body of man is a system made up of parts, wonderfully numerous and diversified, and still more wonderfully united and arranged. Every one of them is regularly found in all the bodies of men, in its own place; and that the best place possible. The hair of the head, which for aught that appears, might as naturally have grown on the face, grows only where it is needed to cover the cerebrum, and cerebellum,

so tender and vital, from the injuries of both heat and cold; and to become, at the same time, a beautiful ornament. The eyes are placed where only they are needed, or could be materially useful, to direct the hands and the feet; the teeth, where alone they could serve their great purpose of mastication; the throat, immediately behind and beneath them, where alone it could answer its own purpose of receiving the food, after it has been chewed, mixed with the saliva, and thus prepared for digestion; the stomach, beneath the throat, or more properly beneath the œsophagus, to receive through it the food, thus prepared, and render it useful to the preservation of life by digestion. In the same manner, the heart is situated in exactly that position, with respect to the lungs and the greater arteries and veins, in which it communicates to them, and through them to the whole body, in the most advantageous manner, the blood, which is the great instrument of sustaining life. The lungs also are in the same happy manner connected with the throat by the trachea so as to receive, and decompose the air, on which we live, after it is admitted into the nostrils. The great bone of the neck and back, commonly called the spine, is so formed and placed, as to sustain the body in an erect posture; as to defend, in a manner indispensably necessary, the spinal marrow, so essential to life; and as, through orifices in the vertebræ, of which it is composed, to permit the nerves to pass, and give sensation to every part of the body; and as, at the same time, to enable us to bend into every useful position. The tongue is so constructed and posited, as to answer exactly its various important purposes, particularly tasting and speaking; the hands, where alone they could be employed, in their innumerable uses; and the feet, where alone they could enable us to stand or walk.

This course of illustration might be pursued through a volume, or rather through many volumes; and the more minutely and extensively it was pursued, the more clearly would it evince, at every step, a design most wonderful in itself, originally and exactly formed, and perfectly executed; every part of which is with the greatest felicity fitted to the important ends of human existence.

Let us now for a moment consider, what would be the consequences of mere casualty with regard to this subject. Suppose the eyes only placed (where they might as easily have