Page:The true intellectual system of the universe - the first part; wherein, all the reason and philosophy of atheism is confuted; and its impossibility demonstrated (IA trueintellectual1678cudw).pdf/19

  Ancient Atomick Physiology, with which Atheism now became thus Blended and Complicated; so do we in this First Chapter, chiefly insist upon Two things concerning it. First, That it was no Invention of Democritus nor Leucippus, but of much greater Antiquity: not onely from that Tradition transmitted by Posidonius the Stoick, That it derived its Original from one Moschus a Phoenician, who lived before the Trojan Wars, (which plainly makes it to have been Mosaicall;) but also from Aristotle's Affirmation, That the greater part of the Ancient Philosophers entertained this Hypothesis; and further because it is certain, that divers of the Italicks, and particularly Empedocles, before Democritus, Physiologized Atomically: which is the Reason, he was so much applauded by Lucretius. Besides which, it is more then a Presumption, that Anaxagoras his Homoeomery or Similar Atomology, was but a Degeneration from the True and Genuine Atomology of the Ancient Italicks, that was an Anomoeomery, or Doctrine of Dissimilar and Unqualified Atoms. Wherefore all that is True concerning Democritus and Leucippus, is onely this, That these men were indeed, the First Atheizers of this Ancient Atomick Physiology, or the Inventors and Broachers of the Atomick Atheism. Which is Laërtius his True meaning, (though it be not commonly understood,) when he recordeth of them, that they were the First, who made Unqualified Atoms, the Principles of all things in the Universe without exception; that is, not onely of Inanimate Bodies, (as the other Ancient Religious Atomists, the Italicks, before had done) but also of Soul and Mind.

And whereas we conceive this Atomick Physiology, as to the Essentialls thereof, to be Vnquestionably True, viz. That the onely Principles of Bodies, are Magnitude, Figure, Site, Motion, and Rest; and that the Qualities and Forms of Inanimate Bodies, are Really nothing, but several Combinations of these, Causing several Phancies in us: (Which excellent Discovery therefore, so long agoe made, is a Notable Instance of the Wit and Sagacity of the Ancients:) So do we in the Next place, make it manifest, that this Atomick Physiology rightly understood, is so far from being either the Mother or Nurse of Atheism, or any ways Favourable thereunto, (as is Vulgarly supposed;) that it is indeed, the most directly Opposite to it of any, and the greatest Defence against the same. For, First, we have Discovered, That the Principle, upon which this Atomology is Founded, and from whence it Sprung, was no other then this, Nothing out of Nothing, in the True Sense thereof; or, That Nothing can be Caused by Nothing: from whence it was concluded, that in Natural Generations, there was no new Real Entity produced, which was not before: the Genuine Consequence whereof was Two-fold; That