Note (return) — Chapter XIII

The fundamental principle of his philosophy is the ancient maxim--"de nihilo nihil, in nihilum nil fosse reverti;" but instead of employing this maxim in the sense in which it is used by Parmenides, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, and others, to prove there must be something self-existent and eternal, or in other words, "that nothing which once was not can ever of itself come into being," he uses it to disprove a divine creation, and even presents the maxim in an altered form--viz., "nothing is ever divinely generated from nothing;" 787 and he thence concludes that the world was by no means made for us by divine power. 788 Nature is eternal. "The universal whole always was such as it now is, and always will be such." "The universe also is infinite, for that which is finite has a limit, but the universe has no limit." 789