"An example will suffice to illustrate this. I suppose an infinite
number of combinations of the letters of the alphabet, successively
formed by chance. All possible combinations are, undoubtedly,
comprehended in that total, which is truely infinite. Now, it is
certain that Homer's Iliad is but a combination of letters:
therefore Homer's Iliad is comprehended in that infinite collection
of combinations of the characters of the alphabet. This being laid
down as a principle, a man who will assign art in the Iliad, will
argue wrong. He may extol the harmony of the verses, the justness
and magnificence of the expressions, the simplicity and liveliness
of images, the due proportion of the parts of the poem, its perfect
unity, and inimitable conduct; he may object that chance can never
make anything so perfect, and that the utmost effort of human wit is
hardly capable to finish so excellent a piece of work: yet all in
vain, for all this specious reasoning is visibly false. It is
certain, on the contrary, that the fortuitous concourse of
characters, putting them together by turns with an infinite variety,
the precise combination that composes the Iliad must have happened
in its turn, somewhat sooner or somewhat later. It has happened at
last; and thus the Iliad is perfect, without the help of any human
art." This is the objection fairly laid down in its full latitude;
I desire the reader's serious and continued attention to the answers
I am going to make to it.


SECT. LXXV. Answers to the Objection of the Epicureans drawn from
the Eternal Motion of Atoms.