Note R — Chapter IV

The following are the well-stated reasonings of Dr. Johnson, a writer who never did injustice to an argument for want of words to express it in:—

"The scale of existence from Infinity to nothing cannot possibly have being. The highest being not infinite must be at an infinite distance from Infinity. Cheyne, who, with the desire inherent in mathematicians to reduce every thing to mathematical images, considers all existence as a cone, allows that the basis is at an infinite distance from the body, and in this distance between finite and infinite there will be room forever for an infinite series of indefinable existence.

"Between the lowest positive existence and nothing, whenever we suppose positive existence to cease, is another chasm infinitely deep, where there is room again for endless orders of subordinate nature, continued forever and ever, and yet infinitely superior to nonexistence.

"To these meditations humanity is unequal. But yet we may ask, not of our Maker, but of each other, since on the one side creation, whenever it stops, must stop infinitely below infinity, and on the other infinitely above nothing, what necessity there is that it should proceed so far either way—that being so high or so low should ever have existed. We may ask, but I believe no created wisdom can give an adequate answer.

"Nor is this all. In the scale, wherever it begins or ends, are infinite vacuities. At whatever distance we suppose the next order of beings to be above man, there is room for an intermediate order of beings between them; and if for one order, then for infinite orders, since every thing that admits of more or less, and consequently all the parts of that which admits them, may be infinitely divided; so that, as far as we can judge, there may be room in the vacuity between any two steps of the scale, or between any two points of the cone of being, for infinite exertion of infinite power."—Review of "A Free Inquiry."