Nothing can be more absurd than to speak of successive combinations
of atoms infinite in number; for the infinite can never be either
successive or divisible. Give me, for instance, any number you may
pretend to be infinite, and it will still be in my power to do two
things that shall demonstrate it not to be a true infinite. In the
first place, I can take an unit from it; and in such a case it will
become less than it was, and will certainly be finite; for whatever
is less than the infinite has a boundary or limit on the side where
one stops, and beyond which one might go. Now the number which is
finite as soon as one takes from it one single unit, could not be
infinite before that diminution; for an unit is certainly finite,
and a finite joined with another finite cannot make an infinite. If
a single unit added to a finite number made an infinite, it would
follow from thence that the finite would be almost equal to the
infinite; than which nothing can be more absurd. In the second
place, I may add an unit to that number given, and consequently
increase it. Now what may be increased is not infinite, for the
infinite can have no bound; and what is capable of augmentation is
bounded on the side a man stops, when he might go further and add
some units to it. It is plain, therefore, that no divisible
compound can be the true infinite.

This foundation being laid, all the romance of the Epicurean
philosophy disappears and vanishes out of sight in an instant.
There never can be any divisible body truly infinite in extent, nor
any number or any succession that is a true infinite. From hence it
follows that there never can be an infinite successive number of
combinations of atoms. If this chimerical infinite were real, I own
all possible and conceivable combinations of atoms would be found in
it; and that consequently all combinations that seem to require the