SECT.  LXXIV.  Another Objection of the Epicureans drawn from the Eternal Motion of Atoms.

I am not ignorant of a reasoning which the Epicureans may frame into an objection.  “The atoms will, they say, have an eternal motion; their fortuitous concourse must, in that eternity, have already produced infinite combinations.  Who says infinite, says what comprehends all without exception.  Amongst these infinite combinations of atoms which have already happened successively, all such as are possible must necessarily be found: for if there were but one possible combination, beyond those contained in that infinite, it would cease to be a true infinite, because something might be added to it; and whatever may be increased, being limited on the side it may receive an addition, is not truly infinite.  Hence it follows that the combination of atoms, which makes up the present system of the world, is one of the combinations which the atoms have had successively: which being laid as a principle, is it matter of wonder that the world is as it is now?  It must have taken this exact form, somewhat sooner, or somewhat later, for in some one of these infinite changes it must, at last, have received that combination that makes it now appear so regular; since it must have had, by turns, all combinations that can be conceived.  All systems are comprehended in the total of eternity.  There is none but the concourse of atoms, forms, and embraces, sooner or later.  In that infinite variety of new spectacles of nature, the present was formed in its turn.  We find ourselves actually in this system.  The concourse of atoms that made will, in process of time, unmake it, in order to make others, ad infinitum, of all possible sorts.  This system could not fail having its place, since all others without exception are to have theirs, each in its turn.  It is in vain one looks for a chimerical art in a work which chance must have made as it is.

“An example will suffice to illustrate this.  I suppose an infinite number of combinations of the letters of the alphabet, successively formed by chance.  All possible combinations are, undoubtedly, comprehended in that total, which is truely infinite.  Now, it is certain that Homer’s Iliad is but a combination of letters: therefore Homer’s Iliad is comprehended in that infinite collection of combinations of the characters of the alphabet.  This being laid down as a principle, a man who will assign art in the Iliad, will argue wrong.  He may extol the harmony of the verses, the justness and magnificence of the expressions, the simplicity and liveliness of images, the due proportion of the parts of the poem, its perfect unity, and inimitable conduct; he may object that chance can never make anything so perfect, and that the utmost effort of human wit is hardly capable to finish so excellent a piece of work: yet all in vain, for all this specious reasoning is visibly false.  It is certain, on the contrary, that the fortuitous concourse of characters, putting them together by turns with an infinite variety, the precise combination that composes the Iliad must have happened in its turn, somewhat sooner or somewhat later.  It has happened at last; and thus the Iliad is perfect, without the help of any human art.”  This is the objection fairly laid down in its full latitude; I desire the reader’s serious and continued attention to the answers I am going to make to it.