ejfential to Matt er, &g. 61

sinking cause is already reduced to a misera-ble dilemma, on either side of which it mustinevitably perish. For either matter is rejijl-ing matter ; or it is not. If it is resisting mat-ter, it could never move itself, by what is saidin N° 14 and i < ; since two conatus’s mu-tually destructive of each other could never .be planted in it; and if it is unrejifiing matter,it. could never move other matter, by whathas just now been said N° 21. unless that o-ther matter could be moved by nothing at all;and this though we should suppose it someway or other first moved itself. So that in ei-ther case matter can never become a self-mov-ing substance; no not by any power, because itimplies a contradiction; for unresisting mat-ter could no more move the matter of a plant,animal, or of the human body, than resistingmatter could. This deserves our notice. Thereis no less need of an immaterial Mover onthe one supposition than the other; nor couldsuch matter have been of any imaginable usein the material world. U nresisting matter is ayet more disadvantageous supposition to theAtheist, if possible, than resisting matter is.Nothing could have been effected by it. Lu-cretius could never have patched up hisWretched universe out of such stuff. He is

forced