exist, must have always been.

Motion becomes still more obscure, when creation, or the formation of
matter, is attributed to a SPIRITUAL being; that is to say, to a being
which has no analogy, no point of contact, with it--to a being which has
neither extent or parts, and cannot, therefore, be susceptible of
motion, as we understand the term; this being only the change of one
body, relatively to another body, in which the body moved presents
successively different parts to different points of space. Moreover, as
all the world are nearly agreed that matter can never be totally
annihilated, or cease to exist; by what reasoning, I would ask, do they
comprehend--how understand--that that which cannot cease to be, could
ever have had a beginning?

If, therefore, it be asked, whence came matter? it is very reasonable to
say it has always existed. If it be inquired, whence proceeds the motion
that agitates matter? the same reasoning furnishes the answer; namely,
that as motion is coeval with matter, it must have existed from all
eternity, seeing that motion is the necessary consequence of its
existence--of its essence--of its primitive properties, such as its
extent, its gravity, its impenetrability, its figure, &c. By virtue of
these essential constituent properties, inherent in all matter, and
without which it is impossible to form an idea of it, the various matter
of which the universe is composed must from all eternity have pressed
against, each other--have gravitated towards a center--have clashed--
have come in contact--have been attracted--have been repelled--have been
combined--have been separated: in short, must have acted and moved
according to the essence and energy peculiar to each genus, and to each
of its combinations.