Book V - Snyder Bible

The Preaching of Simeon Kefa 245
always remaining in the middle. Since then some, as being
fiery, always tend upward, and others, as being moist and dry,
always downwards, and others keep a middle and unequal
course, how could they meet together and form one body? For
if any one throw down from a height small pieces of straw, for
example, and pieces of lead of the same size, will the light
straws be able to keep up with the pieces of lead, though they
be equal in size? Nay; the heavier reach the bottom for more
quickly. So also atoms, though they be equal in size, yet, being
unequal in weight, the lighter will never be able to keep pace
with the heavier; but if they cannot keep pace, certainly neither
can they be mixed or form one body.
Chapter XVIII: The Concourse of Atoms Could Not Make the
World
borne about,
and always coming, and being added to things whose measure
is already complete, how can the universe stand, when new
weights are always being heaped upon so vast weights? And
this also I ask: If this expanse of heaven which we say was
constructed by the gradual concurrence of atoms, how did it
not collapse while it was in construction, if indeed the yawning
top of the structure was not propped and bound by any
stays? For as those who build circular domes, unless they bind
the fastening of the central top, the whole falls at once, so also
the circle of the world, which we see to be brought together in
so graceful a form, if it was not made at once, and under the
influence of a single putting forth of divine energy by the power
of a Creator, but by atoms gradually concurring and constructing
it, not as reason demanded, but as a fortuitous issue
befell, how did it not fall down and crumble to pieces before it
could be brought together and fastened? And further, I ask
this: What is the pavement on which the foundations of such
an immense mass are laid? And again, what you call the pavement,
on what does it rest? And again that other, what supports
it? And so I go on asking, until the answer comes to
nothing and vacuity!