VOLTAIRE: 60+ Works in One Volume - Philosophical Writings, Novels, Historical Works, Poetry, Plays & Letters. Вольтер
Читать онлайн книгу.
Nought but a body can a body touch.
POSIDONIUS.—Should I grant you these principles, and even your atoms and your vacuum, you can no more persuade me that the universe put itself into the admirable order in which we now behold it, than if you were to tell the Romans that the armillary sphere composed by Posidonius made itself.
LUCRETIUS.—But who then could make the world?
POSIDONIUS.—An intelligent Being, much more superior to the world and to me than I am to the brass of which I made my sphere.
LUCRETIUS.—How can you, who admit nothing but what is evident, acknowledge a principle of which you have not the least idea?
POSIDONIUS.—In the same manner as, before I knew you, I judged that your book was the work of a man of genius.
LUCRETIUS.—You allow that nature is eternal, and exists because it does exist. Now if it exists by its own power, why may it not, by the same power, have formed suns, and worlds, and plants, and animals, and men?
POSIDONIUS.—All the ancient philosophers have supposed matter to be eternal, but have never proved it to be really so; and even allowing it to be eternal, it would by no means follow that it could form works in which there are so many striking proofs of wisdom and design. Suppose this stone to be eternal if you will, you can never persuade me that it could have composed the “Iliad” of Homer.
LUCRETIUS.—No: a stone could never have composed the “Iliad,” any more than it could have produced a horse: but matter organized in process of time, and become bones, flesh, and blood, will produce a horse; and organized more finely, will produce the “Iliad.”
POSIDONIUS.—You suppose all this without any proof; and I ought to admit nothing without proof. I will give you bones, flesh, and blood, ready made, and will leave you and all the Epicureans in the world to make your best of them. Will you only consent to this alternative: to be put in possession of the whole Roman Empire, if, with all the ingredients ready prepared, you produce a horse, and to be hanged if you fail in the attempt?
LUCRETIUS.—No; that surpasses my power, but not the power of nature. It requires millions of ages for nature, after having passed through all the possible forms, to arrive at last at the only one which can produce living beings.
POSIDONIUS.—You might, if you pleased, continue all your lifetime to shake in a cask all the materials of the earth mixed together, you would never be able to form any regular figure; you could produce nothing. If the length of your life is not sufficient to produce even a mushroom, will the length of another man’s life be sufficient for that purpose? Why should several ages be able to effect what one age has not effected? One ought to have seen men and animals spring from the bosom of the earth, and corn produced without seed, etc., before he should venture to affirm that matter, by its own energy, could give itself such forms; but no one that I know of has seen such an operation, and therefore no one ought to believe it.
LUCRETIUS.—Well! men, animals, and trees must always have existed. All the philosophers allow that matter is eternal; and they must further allow, that generations are so likewise. It is the very nature of matter that there should be stars that revolve, birds that fly, horses that run, and men that compose “Iliads.”
POSIDONIUS.—In this new supposition you change your opinion; but you always suppose the point in question, and admit a thing for which you have not the least proof.
LUCRETIUS.—I am at liberty to believe that what is to-day was yesterday, was a century ago, was a hundred centuries ago, and so on backwards without end. I make use of your argument: no one has ever seen the sun and stars begin their course, nor the first animals formed and endowed with life. We may, therefore, safely believe that all things were from eternity as they are at present.
POSIDONIUS.—There is a very great difference. I see an admirable design, and I ought to believe that an intelligent being formed that design.
LUCRETIUS.—You ought not to admit a being of whom you have no knowledge.
POSIDONIUS.—You might as well tell me that I should not believe that an architect built the capitol because I never saw that architect.
LUCRETIUS.—Your comparison is not just. You have seen houses built, and you have seen architects; and therefore you ought to conclude that it was a man like our present architects that built the capitol. But here the case is very different: the capitol does not exist of itself, but matter does. It must necessarily have had some form; and why will you not allow it to possess, by its own energy, the form in which it now is? Is it not much easier for you to admit that nature modifies itself, than to acknowledge a being that modifies it? In the former case you have only one difficulty to encounter, namely, to comprehend how nature acts. In the latter you have two difficulties to surmount: to comprehend this same nature, and the visible being that acts on it.
POSIDONIUS.—It is quite the reverse. I see not only a difficulty, but even an impossibility in comprehending how matter can have infinite designs; but I see no difficulty in admitting an intelligent being, who governs this matter by his infinite wisdom, and by his almighty will.
LUCRETIUS.—What? is it because your mind cannot comprehend one thing that you are to suppose another? Is it because you do not understand the secret springs, and admirable contrivances, by which nature disposed itself into planets, suns, and animals, that you have recourse to another being?
POSIDONIUS.—No; I have not recourse to a god, because I cannot comprehend nature; but I plainly perceive that nature needs a supreme intelligence; and this reason alone would to me be a sufficient proof of a deity had I no other.
LUCRETIUS.—And what if this matter possessed intelligence of itself?
POSIDONIUS.—It is plain to me that it does not possess it.
LUCRETIUS.—And to me it is plain that it does possess it, since I see bodies like you and me reason.
POSIDONIUS.—If matter possesses, of itself, the faculty of thinking, you must affirm that it possesses it necessarily and independently: but if this property be essential to matter, it must have it at all times and in all places; for whatever is essential to a thing can never be separated from it. A bit of clay, and even the vilest excrement would think; but sure you will not say that dung thinks. Thought, therefore, is not an essential attribute of matter.
LUCRETIUS.—Your reasoning is a mere sophism. I hold motion to be essential to matter; and yet this dung, or that piece of clay, is not actually in motion; but they will be so when they are impelled by some other body. In like manner thought will not be an attribute of a body, except when that body is organized for thinking.
POSIDONIUS.—Your error proceeds from this, that you always suppose the point in question. You do not reflect that, in order to organize a body, to make it a man, to render it a thinking being, there must previously be thought, there must be a fixed design. But you cannot admit such a thing as design before the only beings in this world capable of design are formed; you cannot admit thought before the only beings capable of thinking exist. You likewise suppose the point in question, when you say that motion is necessary to matter; for what is absolutely necessary always exists, as extension, for instance, exists always and in every part of matter; but motion does not exist always. The pyramids of Egypt are not surely in motion. A subtile matter perhaps, may penetrate between the stones which compose the pyramids; but the body of the pyramid is immovable. Motion, therefore, is not essential to matter, but is communicated to it by a foreign cause, in the same manner as thought is to men. Hence it follows that there must be a powerful and intelligent being, who communicates motion, life, and thought to his creatures.
LUCRETIUS.—I can easily answer your objections by saying that there have always been motion and intelligence in the world. This motion and this intelligence have been distributed at all times according to the laws of nature. Matter being eternal, it must necessarily have been in some order; but it could not be put into any order without thought and motion; and therefore thought and motion must have always been inherent in it.
POSIDONIUS.—Do