And if the weight requisite very much
exceeds any thing which we have ever seen conjoined in any single
body, the former supposition becomes still more probable and
natural. An intelligent being of such vast power and capacity as
is necessary to produce the universe, or, to speak in the
language of ancient philosophy, so prodigious an animal exceeds
all analogy, and even comprehension.
But further, C/LEANTHES\: men are mortal, and renew their
species by generation; and this is common to all living
creatures. The two great sexes of male and female, says M/ILTON\,
animate the world. Why must this circumstance, so universal, so
essential, be excluded from those numerous and limited deities?
Behold, then, the theogony of ancient times brought back upon us.
And why not become a perfect Anthropomorphite? Why not
assert the deity or deities to be corporeal, and to have eyes, a
nose, mouth, ears, &c.? E/PICURUS\ maintained, that no man had
ever seen reason but in a human figure; therefore the gods must
have a human figure. And this argument, which is deservedly so
much ridiculed by C/ICERO\, becomes, according to you, solid and
philosophical.
In a word, C/LEANTHES\, a man who follows your hypothesis is
able perhaps to assert, or conjecture, that the universe,
sometime, arose from something like design: but beyond that
position he cannot ascertain one single circumstance; and is left
afterwards to fix every point of his theology by the utmost
license of fancy and hypothesis.
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