r the archetypes
of Plato,--he had had a notion, he said, that a good deal might be made
out of them without Plato's Demiurgus; another, for the constituents
of the vital automata of Descartes: he had been misled to believe, that,
if animals could be mechanically produced, the whole universe might
have been so produced also. The Archangel assured them and others,
with much politeness, that, if the philosophers in question could in
any way make their meaning intelligible, Heaven would do its poor best
to realize their conceptions; but that it was impossible for even
omnipotence to execute commands which even omniscience could not
comprehend.

"Similarly, one man requested that he might be provided with a little
of Aristotle's 'Eternal Matter,' but he was told that there was no such
thing in rerum natura, and that it was unfortunately too late to make
it. He seemed to think himself very unjustly treated. Another demanded
some of the Atoms of Epicurus, to make a slight experiment with;
unexceptionably spherical, invisible, and so forth. These, he was told,
he might be accommodated with; and that all he had to do was to shake
them long enough, and doubtless the fortuitous jumble would come out
at last a miniature world.

"Above all, there were several German philosophers, who, having founded
various physical theories, more or less extensive, on the perspicuous
metaphysics of their countrymen, were confident that, if they had not
hit on the modes which Supreme Wisdom had adopted, their modes were
yet very excellent modes; and they were absolutely clamorous that their
experiments should begin. But, alas! many of them stood but little
chance of being ever tried, for the very same reason which prevented
the disciple of Leibnitz from obtaining his 'Monads'; their authors
could not make their meaning intelligible to the delegated omniscience.
As to some of the metaphysicians, since their theories embraced nothing
less than the evolution of the 'totality' of the universe, the 'infinite'
and the 'absolute' included, it was of course impossible that they
could be tried. But it was thought an appropriate punishment for them
to be condemned to write on till they had made their meaning intelligible.
Some have labored with incredible industry to comply with this very
reasonable request, but their notions seem to grow darker and darker
at every step; and one in particular has written a huge folio, in which,
by universal consent of men