A Demonstration of the Existence and Attributes of God: Drawn from the Knowledge of Nature, from Proofs Purely Intellectual, and from the Idea of the Infinite Himself |
Contents
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Common terms and phrases
absolute accor admire affirm aliments animals artificer ascribe Atheists beasts believe bestow body bones bounds brain cause Chance chimerical chyle Cicero clear idea clinamen colours combinations of atoms compound conceive consequently contrary creatures degree Deity Deor discover divers doubt earth Epicureans equally error essence eternal existence existence of God eyes fect finite give Gregory Nazianzen hand Iliads imagine immutable imperfect indivisible infi infinitely perfect infinity instinct least less light lively colour living looking-glasses machine man's manner matter mind motion move nature necessary nerves never nite objects pass perceive perfect circle philosophers proportion reason receive render rule SECT sense sensible serve shews sophism sort soul speak spirits spring substance subtile superior suppose supreme terrestrial animal thing thought tion true infinite truth turn unit unity Universe waters divide Wherefore wherein whereof whole wisdom wonderful
Popular passages
Page 92 - ... return to it. It is a controlling power within me, that silences or bids me speak ; that makes me believe or makes me doubt ; bids me confess my errors or confirms my decisions. In listening to it, I am instructed ; in listening to myself, I go astray. This sovereign power is found everywhere ; its voice is heard from one end of the universe to the other, by all mankind as it is by me.
Page 55 - His quidam signis atque haec exempla secuti esse apibus partem divinae mentis et haustus aetherios dixere ; deum namque ire per omnes terrasque tractusque maris caelumque profundum ; hinc pecudes, armenta, viros, genus omne ferarum, quemque sibi tenues nascentem arcessere vitas ; scilicet hue reddi deinde ac resoluta referri omnia, nee morti esse locum, sed viva volare sideris in numerum atque alto succedere cáelo.
Page 89 - ... what it believes or wills. It often fancies to believe and will what it neither believes nor wills. It is liable to mistake, and its greatest excellence is to acknowledge it. To the error of its thoughts it adds the disorder and irregularity of its will and desires; so that it is forced to groan in the consciousness and experience of its corruption. Such is the mind of man, weak, uncertain, stinted, full of errors. Now, who is it that put the idea of the infinite, that is to say of perfection,...
Page 55 - Through heav'n, and earth, and ocean's depth, he throws His influence round, and kindles as he goes. Hence flocks, and herds, and men, and beasts, and fowls, With breath are...
Page 13 - HomerVIliad" was not the product of the genius of a great poet, but that the letters of the alphabet, being confusedly jumbled and mixed, were by chance, as it were by the cast of a pair of dice, brought together in such an order as is necessary to describe, in verses full of harmony and variety, so many great events; to place and connect them so well together; to paint every object with all its most graceful, most noble, and most affecting attendants; in short, to make every person speak according...
Page 23 - ... Fruit trees, as they bow their branches towards the earth, seem to invite us to receive their treasures. The feeblest plant contains within itself the germ of all that we admire in the grandest tree. The earth, that does not change itself, produces all these changes in its offspring. Let us notice what we call water ; it is a liquid, clear, and transparent body. Now it escapes from our grasp, and now it takes the form of whatever surrounds it, having none of its own. If the water were a little...
Page 117 - A traveller entering Sai-de, which is the place that once was ancient Thebes, with its hundred gates, but is now a desert, would find there columns, pyramids, obelisks, and inscriptions in unknown characters. Would he say: "Men have never inhabited this place; the hand of man has never been employed here; it is chance that has formed these columns and placed them upon their pedestals, crowning them with capitals of such beautiful proportions; it is chance...
Page 21 - ... seem to be the most sterile and wild yield sometimes either delicious fruits or most wholesome medicines that are wanting in the most fertile countries. Besides, it is the effect of a wise over-ruling Providence that no land yields all that is useful to human life. For want invites men to commerce, in order to supply one another's necessities. It is therefore that want which is the natural tie of society between nations; otherwise, all the people of the earth would be reduced to one sort of food...
Page 88 - ... never be changed, altered, impaired, or defaced in us, for they make up the very essence of our reason. Whatever effort a man may make in his own mind, yet it is impossible for him ever to entertain a serious doubt about the truths which those ideas clearly represent to us. For instance, I never can seriously call in question, whether the whole is bigger than one of its parts, or whether the centre of a perfect circle is equally distant from all the points of the circumference. The idea of the...
Page 91 - I observed before, to entertain a doubt, whether two and two make four ; whether the whole is bigger than one of its parts ; or whether the centre of a perfect circle be equally distant from all the points of the circumference.