14. Not material: first, because each particle of matter is not
cogitative. But now let us see how they can satisfy themselves, or
others, that this eternal thinking Being is material.
I. I would ask them, whether they imagine that all matter, every
particle of matter, thinks? This, I suppose, they will scarce say;
since then there would be as many eternal thinking beings as there are
particles of matter, and so an infinity of gods. And yet, if they will
not allow matter as matter, that is, every particle of matter, to be
as well cogitative as extended, they will have as hard a task to
make out to their own reasons a cogitative being out of incogitative
particles, as an extended being out of unextended parts, if I may so
speak.
15. II. Secondly, because one particle alone of matter cannot be
cogitative. If all matter does not think, I next ask, Whether it be
only one atom that does so? This has as many absurdities as the other;
for then this atom of matter must be alone eternal or not. If this
alone be eternal, then this alone, by its powerful thought or will,
made all the rest of matter. And so we have the creation of matter
by a powerful thought, which is that the materialists stick at; for if
they suppose one single thinking atom to have produced all the rest of
matter, they cannot ascribe that pre-eminency to it upon any other
account than that of its thinking, the only supposed difference.
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