wherein all the reason and philosophy of atheism is confuted, and

i6 An2iX2Lgov2iS a Spurious Ato?mJt, Book I,clyxi SSt^ifT^pSyojJ.im ry^ '('•'[''^ '''f se^i'PofX^y xval^Auoai to uJ'wp, i'^ i 5v[J.ia.^rivxi rovdhc, xy.l yvA^y-i to'j fj-h ifo.vov ex ts xl^iJ^^ ro\i ii jj'Xiou eh crufo;' Empedocleswrites, that aether iias firjl of all fecreted out of the confnfed chaos ofatoms, cfterivard the fire, and thm the earth, which being conflringed, and asit :; ere fqucezed by the force of agitation, fent forth water buubling out of it ;from the evaporation of which did proceed air ; and from the ather was madeibe heavens, from fire the fun. We fee therefore, that it was not withoutcaufe, that Lucretius ' did fo highly extol Empedocles, fince his phyfiologywas really the fame with that of Epicurus and Democritus ; only that hediffered from them in fome particularities, as in excluding a vacuum, and denyingfuch phyfical minima as were indivifible.XV. As for Anaxagoras, though he philofophized by atoms, fubftitutingconcretion and lecretion in the room of generation and corruption, infiftingupon the fame fundamental principle, that Empedocles, Democritus and theother Atomifts did; which was (as we fhall declare more fully afterward)that nothing could be made out of nothing, nor reduced to nothing ; andtherefore that there were neither any nev/ produftions nor deftruifhions ofany fubftanccs or real entities : yet, as his Homcccmeria is reprefented byArijlolle, Lucretius and other authors, that bone was made of bony atoms,and flefh of flefliy, red things of red atoms, and hot things of hot atoms ;thefe atoms being fuppofed to be endued originally with fo many feveralforms and qualities effential to them, and infeparable from them, there wasindeed a wide difference betwixt his philofophy and the atomical. However,this feems to have had its rife from nothing elfe but this philofoplier'snot being able to underftand the atomical hypothefis, which made him declineit, and fubftitute this fpurious and counterfeit atomifm of his own inthe room of it.XVI. Laftly, I might add here, that it is recorded by good authors concerningdivers other ancient philofophers, that were not addiifled to Democriticifmor Atheilm, that they followed this atomical way of phyfiologizing,and therefore in all probability did derive it from thofe religious atoniiilsbefore Democritus. As for example ; Ecphantus the Syracufian Pythagoriff,who, as iitcbaus writes, made -v- i-hxloi-rx cujaxtx kuI to y.iviv, indivifiblebodies and vacuum the principles of phyfiology, and as Theodcret alfoteilifies, taught ir. t&7v ^-vofjwj o-jvfs-avai riv xoc-y-ov, that the corporeal world wasmade up of atoms ; Xeuocrates ',x.\\a.t made jusj^ifiii atfi^IpsTj',, indivifible magnitiidesthe firll principles of bodies ; Hcraclides ', that refolved ail corporealthings into -^nyiJ-ccra. y.x\ 2^^-i.'(r|Uc,Ta Tivz f'/.a^/ira, certain fmcilleji fragments ofbodies ; Afclepiades"•, who fuppofed all the corporeal world to be made sgccsCfj-oMv >:al dyxfy-uiv oWmv, not of fimilar parts (as Anaxagoras) but of diffimilarand inconcinn molecula:, i. e. atoms of different magnitude and figures ; andDicdo-» Lib. I. verf. 745. ' Vide Plutarch, de Placiiis Philof. Lib. I.* V';.'.e Georg.744,Fachymer. libcrum ^^ can. XIH. y. 8S5. Tom. IL Oper.d ou-.v y^i.uuMv, qui extat inter Arilloie- 4 \'i.io Scxuim Enipiric. Hypotypof. PyrlisOpcia^ 'rom. IL ctp. L p. S19. rl:o:i. Lib. III. cap. IV. p. 156.