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For all Natural Generation tends to some one thing for∣mally and by it self; but this World is not any one thing for∣mally and by it self, but only by accident; that is to say, Composed of several bodies,
as Earth, Sun, Moon, &c. Of different Species and discon∣tinuant, therefore could not owe its Being to any Natural Generation.
Nor yet to the fortuitous concourse of wandring Attoms according to the Dream of Epi∣curus, whose ridiculous Hypo∣thesis being of late reviv'd, hath undeservedly procured to many followers, and is in Sum no more but this. That in an In∣finite Ʋltramundane space, there is an Infinite Troop of Attoms, or little Particles which have an eter∣nal motion that makes them En∣counter and justle each other; and
that such their casual concourse and shuffling together, made up this World and danced them by meer chance into all these beautious visible Beings, and in that exact order and harmony which we be∣hold.
A conceit so absurd and ex∣travagant that it deserves scarce any other Refutation but a hiss; yet that we may continue our Method, we thus seriously and in brief raze its foundations, and say,
That these imaginary At∣toms in this fancied vacuity were either eternally there, or not, if the last, than they were
placed thereby somewhat before and above them, and that leads us to our principles of an Infi∣nite being or Deity; if the first, then they must of necessi∣ty have been without alteration there still; for whatever is eter∣nal is unchangable, that is, can never cease to be as it was, or produce any other thing by varying its own form; nor can any thing be Infinite in change, since what infinitely is, is the highest perfection of being; now Change is a perfect rela∣tive to imperfection, and to imagine a change in what is In∣finite, is to imagine a change
from the highest perfection, which is unimaginable.