There is no
more reason for attributing intelligence to the head which
produced the "Iliad" than to a mass of matter which crystallizes
in octahedrons; and, reciprocally, it is as absurd to refer the
system of the world to physical laws, leaving out an ordaining
ME, as to attribute the victory of Marengo to strategic
combinations, leaving out the first consul. The only distinction
that can be made is that, in the latter case, the thinking ME is
located in the brain of a Bonaparte, while, in the case of the
universe, the ME has no special location, but extends everywhere.
The materialists think that they have easily disposed of their
opponents by saying that man, having likened the universe to his
body, finishes the comparison by presuming the existence in the
universe of a soul similar to that which he supposes to be the
principle of his own life and thought; that thus all the
arguments in support of the existence of God are reducible to an
analogy all the more false because the term of comparison is
itself hypothetical.
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