Antolinus also assumes a beginning of things, as we now know them; but his language is sometimes very obscure. I have endeavoured to explain the meaning of one difficult passage. (VII. 75, and the note.)

Matter consists of elemental parts (σroxeîa) 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" (σTepμaтikoì λóyo). 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 (yvxaì) 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

Thy Almighty hand made the world of matter without form," which may mean that matter existed already.

The common Greek word which we translate "matter" is van. It is the stuff that things are made of.

organized beings is possible."

This may be the meaning,

but if it is, nothing of any value can be derived from it.' Antoninus often uses the word "Nature" (púois), and we must attempt to fix its meaning. The simple etymological sense of purus 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, if 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

9 Justin (Apol. II. 8) has the words kaтà σтeрμатikoû λóyov μépos, where he is speaking of the Stoics; but he uses this expression in a peculiar sense (note, 11). 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. 1, v. 4) we find a Stoic expression, Iva διὰ τούτων γένησθε θείας κοινωνοὶ φύσεως.

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.

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 phaenomena, 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 phaenomena, 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 phaenomena, 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 phaenomena, as for instance, the phaenomena of generation, growth, and dissolution, is and ever must be imperfect.

We do not fare much better when we speak of Causes and Effects than when we speak of Nature. For the practical purposes of life we may use the terms cause and effect conveniently, and we may fix a distinct meaning to them, distinct enough at least to prevent all misunderstanding. But the case is different when we speak of causes and effects as of Things. All that we know is phaenomena, as the Greeks called them, or appearances which follow one another in a regular order, as we conceive it, so that if some one phaenomenon should fail in the series, we conceive that there must either be an interruption of the series, or that something else will appear after the phaenomenon which has failed to appear, and will occupy the vacant place; and so the series in its progression may be modified or totally changed. Cause and effect then mean nothing in the sequence of natural phaenomena beyond what I have said; and the real cause, or the transcendent cause, as some would call it, of each successive phaenomenon is in that which is the cause of all things which are, which have been, and which will be for ever. Thus the word Creation may have a real sense if we consider it as the first, if we can conceive a first, in the present order of natural phaenomena; but in the vulgar sense a creation of all things at a certain time, followed by a quiescence of the first cause and an abandonment of all sequences of Phaenomena to the laws of Nature, or to the other words that people may use, is absolutely absurd.10

10 Time and space are the conditions of our thought; but time infinite and space infinite cannot be objects of thought, except in a very imperfect way. Time and space must not in any way be thought of, when we think of the Deity. Swedenborg says, "The natural man may believe that he would have no thought, if the ideas of time, of space, and of things material were taken away; for upon those is founded all

Now, though there is great difficulty in understan ling all the passages of Antoninus, in which he speaks of Nature, of the changes of things and of the economy of the universe, I am convinced that his sense of Nature and Natural is the same as that which I have stated; and as he was a man who knew how to use words in a clear way and with strict consistency, we ought to assume, even if his meaning in some passages is doubtful, that his view of Nature was in harmony with his fixed belief in the all-pervading, ever present, and ever active energy of God. (II. 4; iv. 40; x. 1; vi. 40; and other passages. Compare Seneca, De Benef. IV. 7. Swedenborg, Angelic Wisdom, 349-357.)

There is much in Antoninus that is hard to understand, and it might be said that he did not fully comprehend all that he wrote; which would however be in no way remarkable, for it happens now that a man may write what neither he nor anybody can understand. Antoninus tells us (XII. 10) to look at things and see what they are, resolving them into the material (λn), the causal (atriov), and the relation (åvapopá), or the purpose, by which he seems to mean something in the nature of what we call effect, or end. The word Cause (airía) is the difficulty. There is the same word in the Sanscrit (hétu); and the subtle philosophers of India and of Greece, and the less subtle philosophers of modern times have all used this word, or an equivalent word, in a vague way. Yet the confusion sometimes may be

the thought that man has. But let him know that the thoughts are limited and confined in proportion as they partake of time, of space, and of what is material; and that they are not limited and are extended, in proportion as they do not partake of those things; since the mind is so far elevated above the things corporeal and worldly." (Concerning Heaven and Hell, 169.)