The reasoning of Lactantius, on this subject, is more worthy of a philosopher, than that employed by Descartes, in supporting his chimerical notion of vortices; or than that which led Kepler to adopt his scheme, equally unsupported by any rational principles, of a vectorial power produced by emanations of the sun, as primary agents of motion in the solar system. Because these schemes of Descartes and Kepler make it necessary to recur to some ulterior, as well as more adequate and comprehensible cause of motion, in the planets, than either vortices or emanations from the sun: whereas Lactantius resorted, at once, to an intelligent First Cause, capable of producing the effect; without conjuring up inefficient agents, as first movers; which left them still under the necessity of going back to a Creator of their respective causes (but second causes, at best,) of the planetary motions; consequently, the First Cause; and, also, of admitting the existence of Intelligence, as an essential attribute in the nature of that Being.
An edition of the works of Lactantius (who was a native of Fermo in Italy,) was printed at Leipsick, in 1715.
[30]. Wisdom of Solomon, ch. 13. v. 2.
[31]. Ibid. ch. 13. v. 3 and 5.
[32]. Psalm 19. v. 1.
[33]. In Mr. Smart’s Poetical Essay on the Immensity of the Supreme Being, after a glowing description of some of the admirable works of nature, is this apt, though laconic address to the Atheist:—
“Thou ideot! that asserts, there is no God,
View, and be dumb for ever.”
[34]. The poet gives a whimsical account of the first formation of man, out of this earth, which is represented as being then new; and, having been recently separated from the high æther, is therefore supposed as yet holding some affinity with heaven, and retaining its seeds. He describes the son of Japetus (Prometheus) moulding a portion of earth, mixed with river-water, into the similitude of those heathen deities, who were said to rule over all things.
A poetic translation into our own language, of the lines above quoted, which exhibit “the godlike image,” thus formed, after its being animated by the stolen fire of Prometheus, is comprehended in the italicised lines of the following passage, extracted from Mr. Dryden’s versification of the first book of Ovid’s Metamorphoses; in which the English poet has well preserved the beauty, the force, and the sublimity of the thought, so finely expressed in the original:—