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Page 13
The common Greek word which we translate "matter" is [Greek:
hyl�]. It is the stuff that things are made of.
Matter consists of elemental parts ([Greek: stoicheia]) of which all
material objects are made. But nothing is permanent in form. The nature
of the universe, according to Antoninus' expression (iv. 36), "loves
nothing so much as to change the things which are, and to make new
things like them. For everything that exists is in a manner the seed of
that which will be. But thou art thinking only of seeds which are cast
into the earth or into a womb: but this is a very vulgar notion." All
things then are in a constant flux and change; some things are dissolved
into the elements, others come in their places; and so the "whole
universe continues ever young and perfect" (xii. 23).
Antoninus has some obscure expressions about what he calls "seminal
principles" ([Greek: spermatikoi logoi]). He opposes them to the
Epicurean atoms (vi. 24), and consequently his "seminal principles" are
not material atoms which wander about at hazard, and combine nobody
knows how. In one passage (iv. 21) he speaks of living principles, souls
([Greek: psychahi]) after the dissolution of their bodies being
received into the "seminal principle of the universe." Schultz thinks
that by "seminal principles Antoninus means the relations of the various
elemental principles, which relations are determined by the Deity and by
which alone the production of organized beings is possible." This may be
the meaning; but if it is, nothing of any value can be derived from
it.[A] Antoninus often uses the word "Nature" ([Greek: physis]), and we
must attempt to fix its meaning, The simple etymological sense of
[Greek: physis] is "production," the birth of what we call Things. The
Romans used Natura, which also means "birth" originally. But neither the
Greeks nor the Romans stuck to this simple meaning, nor do we. Antoninus
says (x. 6): "Whether the universe is [a concourse of] atoms or Nature
[is a system], let this first be established, that I am a part of the
whole which is governed by nature." Here it might seem as if nature were
personified and viewed as an active, efficient power; as something
which, it not independent of the Deity, acts by a power which is given
to it by the Deity. Such, if I understand the expression right, is the
way in which the word Nature is often used now, though it is plain that
many writers use the word without fixing any exact meaning to it. It is
the same with the expression Laws of Nature, which some writers may use
in an intelligible sense, but others as clearly use in no definite sense
at all. There is no meaning in this word Nature, except that which
Bishop Butler assigns to it, when he says, "The only distinct meaning of
that word Natural is Stated, Fixed, or Settled; since what is natural as
much requires and presupposes an intelligent agent to render it so,
_i.e._, to effect it continually or at stated times, as what is
supernatural or miraculous does to effect it at once." This is Plato's
meaning (De Leg., iv. 715) when he says that God holds the beginning and
end and middle of all that exists, and proceeds straight on his course,
making his circuit according to nature (that is by a fixed order); and
he is continually accompanied by justice, who punishes those who deviate
from the divine law, that is, from the order or course which God
observes.
[A] Justin (Apol. ii. 8) has the words [Greek: kata
spermatikou logou meros], where he is speaking of the Stoics;
but he uses this expression in a peculiar sense (note II). The
early Christian writers were familiar with the Stoic terms, and
their writings show that the contest was begun between the
Christian expositors and the Greek philosophy. Even in the
second Epistle of St. Peter (ii. I, v. 4) we find a Stoic
expression, [Greek: Ina dia tout�n gen�sthe theias koin�noi
physe�s.]
When we look at the motions of the planets, the action of what we call
gravitation, the elemental combination of unorganized bodies and their
resolution, the production of plants and of living bodies, their
generation, growth, and their dissolution, which we call their death, we
observe a regular sequence of phenomena, which within the limits of
experience present and past, so far as we know the past, is fixed and
invariable. But if this is not so, if the order and sequence of
phenomena, as known to us, are subject to change in the course of an
infinite progression,--and such change is conceivable,--we have not
discovered, nor shall we ever discover, the whole of the order and
sequence of phenomena, in which sequence there may be involved according
to its very nature, that is, according to its fixed order, some
variation of what we now call the Order or Nature of Things. It is also
conceivable that such changes have taken place,--changes in the order of
things, as we are compelled by the imperfection of language to call
them, but which are no changes; and further it is certain that our
knowledge of the true sequence of all actual phenomena, as for instance
the phenomena of generation, growth, and dissolution, is and ever must
be imperfect.
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