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exceeds the power of Chance to conftitute a Being
like That: which, they may fay, is to expect I-
mitation from Chance, and not fimple Production.
But at the firft Beginning of things there was no
Copy to be followed, nor any præ-exiftent Form
of Humane Bodies to be imitated. So that to
the case fairly, we should strip our minds and fan-
cies from any particular Notion and Idea of a Li-
ving Body or a Poem: and then we fhall under-
ftand, that what Shape and Structure foever should
be at first casually formed, so that it could live and
propagate, might be Man: and whatsoever should
refult from the ftrowing of thofe loose Letters, that
made any Sense and Measures, might be the Poem
we feek for.

To which we reply, That if we fhould allow them, that there was no præ-existent Idea of Humane Nature, till it was actually formed, (for the Idea of Man in the Divine Intellect muft not now be confider'd) yet because they declare, that great Multitudes of each Species of Animals did fortuitoufly emerge out of the Soil in diftant Countries and Climates; what could that be less than Imitation in blind Chance, to make many Individuals of one Species fo exactly alike? Nay though they should now, to cross us and e

Lucret. 5. Hinc ubi quæque
Crefcebant uteri, &c. & ibid.
Inde loci mortalia facla cre-

loci regio opportuna dabatur,

avit, Multa modis multis

varia ratione coorta.

vade the force of the Argument, desert their ancient Doctrine, and derive all forts of Animals from fingle Originals of each kind, which should be the common Parents of all the Race: yet surely even in this account they must neceffarily conftitute Two at least, Male and Female, in every Species; which Chance could neither make so very nearly alike, without Copying and Imitation; nor fo usefully differing, without Contrivance and Wisdom. So that let them take whether they will: If they deduce all Animals from single pairs of a fort; even to make the Second of a Pair, is to write after a Copy; it is, in the former comparison, by the cafting of loose Letters to compofe the præ-existent particular Poem of Ennius: But if they make numerous Sons and Daughtes of Earth among every Species of Creatures, as all their Authors have fupposed; this is not only, as was faid before, to believe a Monky may once scribble the Leviathan of Hobbes, but may do the fame frequently by an Habitual kind of Chance, even above the number of all the Impreffion.

Let us confider, how next to Impoffible it is, that Chance (if there were such a thing) should in fuch an immenfe Variety of Parts in an Animal twice hit upon the fame Structure, fo as to make a Male and Female. Let us refume the former inftance

D 2

ftance of the XXIIII Letters thrown at random upon the ground. 'Tis a Mathematical Demonftration, That these XXIIII do admit of fo many Tucquetti Changes in their order, may make such a long roll cap de Pro- of differently ranged Alphabets, not two of which

Arithmet.

greffione.

are alike; that they could not all be exhausted, though a Million millions of Writers should each write above a thousand Alphabets a-day for the fpace of a Million millions of years. What strength of Imagination can extend it self to embrace and comprehend fuch a prodigious Diversity? And it is as infallibly certain, that fuppofe any particular order of the Alphabet to be affigned, and the XXIIII Letters to be caft at a venture, fo as to fall in a Line; it is fo many Million of millions odds to one against any single throw, that the affigned Order will not be caft. Let us now fuppofe, there be only a thousand conftituent Members in the Body of a Man, (that we may take few enough) it is plain that the different Pofition and Situation of these thousand Parts, would make fo many differing Compounds and diftinct Species of Animals. And if only XXIIII Parts, as before, may be so multifariously placed and order'd, as to make many Millions of Millions of differing Rows: in the fuppofition of a thousand parts, how immenfe muft that capacity of variation be? even beyond

beyond all thought and denomination, to be expreffed only in mute Figures, whofe multiplied Powers are beyond the narrowness of Language, and drown the Imagination in astonishment and confufion. Especially if we obferve, that the Variety of the Alphabet confider'd above, was in mere Longitnde only: but the Thousand parts of our Bodies may be Diverfified by Situation in all the Dimensions of Solid Bodies: which multiplies all over and over again, and overwhelms the fancy in a new Abyss of unfathomable Number. Now it is demonftratively certain, that it is all this odds to one, against any particular trial, That no one man could by cafual production be framed like another; (as the Atheists suppose thousands to be in feveral. regions of the Earth;) and I think 'tis rather more: odds than lefs, that no one Female could be added to a Male; in as much as that most necessary Difference of Sex is a higher token of Divine Wif dom and Skill, above all the power of Fortuitous Hits, than the very Similitude of both Sexes in the other parts of the Body. And again we must con-fider, that the vaft imparity of this Odds againft: the accidental likeness of two Cafual Formations is never leffen'd and diminish'd by Trying, and Cafting Tis above a Hundred to one a

T

gainst

gainst any particular throw, That you do not caft any given Sett of Faces with four Cubical Dice: because there are so many several Combinations of the fix Faces of four Dice. Now after you have caft all the trials but one: 'tis ftill as much odds at the last remaining time, as it was at the firft. For blind infenfible Chance cannot grow cunning by many experiments; neither have the preceding Cafts any influence upon those that come after. So that if this Chance of the Atheists fhould have essayed in vain to make a Species for a Million millions of Ages, 'tis ftill as many Millions odds against that Formation, as it was at the first moment in the beginning of Things. How incredi ble is it therefore; that it fhould hit upon two Productions alike, within fo fhort duration of the world, according to the Doctrine of our Atheists? novitatem how much more, that it should do fo within the cenfq; Na- compass of a hundred years, and of a fmall tract of Ground; fo that this Male and Female might exordia ce come together? If any Atheist can be induced to ftake his Soul for a wager, against such an inexhauftible difproportion; let him never hereafter accuse others of Eafinefs and Credulity.

Luc. s. Verum, ut 0pinor, habet

Summa, re

tura eft

mundi, ne

que pridem

pit.

(4) But fourthly, we will ftill make more ample Conceffions, and fuppofe with the Atheist,

that

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