8. Recapitulation Something from Eternity.

There is no truth more evident than that SOMETHING must be FROM
ETERNITY. I never yet heard of any one so unreasonable, or that could
suppose so manifest a contradiction, as a time wherein there was
perfectly nothing. This being of all absurdities the greatest, to
imagine that pure nothing, the perfect negation and absence of all
beings, should ever produce any real existence.

It being, then, unavoidable for all rational creatures to conclude, that
SOMETHING has existed from eternity; let us next see WHAT KIND OF THING
that must be.


9. Two Sorts of Beings, cogitative and incogitative.

There are but two sorts of beings in the world that man knows or
conceives.

First, such as are purely material, without sense, perception, or
thought, as the clippings of our beards, and parings of our nails.

Secondly, sensible, thinking, perceiving beings, such as we find
ourselves to be. Which, if you please, we will hereafter call COGITATIVE
and INCOGITATIVE beings; which to our present purpose, if for nothing
else, are perhaps better terms than material and immaterial.