you brazenly:
"The combination of this universe was possible, seeing that the
combination exists: therefore it was possible that movement alone
arranged it. Take four of the heavenly bodies only, Mars, Venus, Mercury
and the Earth: let us think first only of the place where they are,
setting aside all the rest, and let us see how many probabilities we
have that movement alone put them in their respective places. We have
only twenty-four chances in this combination, that is, there are only
twenty-four chances against one to bet that these bodies will not be
where they are with reference to each other. Let us add to these four
globes that of Jupiter; there will be only a hundred and twenty against
one to bet that Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury and our globe, will not be
placed where we see them.
"Add finally Saturn: there will be only seven hundred and twenty chances
against one, for putting these six big planets in the arrangement they
preserve among themselves, according to their given distances. It is
therefore demonstrated that in seven hundred and twenty throws,
movement alone has been able to put these six principal planets in their
order.
"Take then all the secondary bodies, all their combinations, all their
movements, all the beings that vegetate, that live, that feel, that
think, that function in all the globes, you will have but to increase
the number of chances; multiply this number in all eternity, up to the
number which our feebleness calls 'infinity,' there will always be a
unity in favour of the formation of the world, such as it is, by
movement alone: therefore it is possible that in all eternity the
movement of matter alone has produced the entire universe such as it
exists. It is even inevitable that in eternity this combination should
occur. Thus," they say, "not only is it possible for the world to be
what it is by movement alone, but it was impossible for it not to be
likewise after an infinity of combinations."
ANSWER
All this supposition seems to me prodigiously fantastic, for two
reasons; first, that in this universe there are intelligent beings, and
that you would not know how to prove it possible for movement alone to
produce understanding; second, that, from your own avowal, there is
infinity against one to bet, that an intelligent creative cause animates
the universe. When one is alone face to face with the infinite, one
feels very small.
Again, Spinoza himself admits this intelli
|