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 intelligence; it is the basis of his
system. You have not read it, and it must be read. Why do you want to go
further than him, and in foolish arrogance plunge your feeble reason in
an abyss into which Spinoza dared not descend? Do you realize thoroughly
the extreme folly of saying that it is a blind cause that arranges that
the square of a planet's revolution is always to the square of the
revolutions of other planets, as the cube of its distance is to the cube
of the distances of the others to the common centre? Either the
heavenly bodies are great geometers, or the Eternal Geometer has
arranged the heavenly bodies.
But where is the Eternal Geometer? is He in one place or in all places,
without occupying space? I have no idea.
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