If we desire to go beyond this, to find the principle of action in
matter, to trace the origin of things, it is for ever to fall back upon
difficulties; it is absolutely to abridge the evidence of our senses; by
which only we can understand, by which alone we can judge of the causes
acting upon them, or the impulse by which they are set in action.

Let us, therefore, content ourselves with saying WHAT is supported by
our experience, and by all the evidence we are capable of understanding;
against the truth of which not a shadow of proof, such as our reason can
admit, has ever been adduced--which has been maintained by philosophers
in every age--which theologians themselves have not denied, but which
many of them have upheld; namely, that _matter always existed; that it
moves by virtue of its essence; that all the phenomena of Nature is
ascribable to the diversified motion of the variety of matter she
contains; and which, like the phoenix, is continually regenerating out
of its own ashes._





CHAP. III.

_Of Matter.--Of its various Combinations.--Of its diversified Motion, or
of the Course of Nature._


We know nothing of the elements of bodies, but we know some of their
properties or qualities; and we distinguish their various matter by the
effect or change produced on our senses; that is to say, by the variety