Allen, Ethan, 1738-1789. An essay on the universal plenitude of being and on the nature and immortality of the human soul and its agency : manuscript, [1784]. MS Am 1825. Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.

since there could have been no object for the display of Divine wisdom and goodness, to have completed in an immense Creation of mere senseless beings, void of intelligence and incapable of enjoyment.

Furthermore if we reason from the analogy of God's providence, in replenishing this globe with rational agents, it would follow, that he has uniformly displayed his providence and goodness throughout his unlimited Creation.

It is too romantic a notion to premise, that God has Created Worlds to our conception unnumerable, placed or moving in harmonious order and perfect natual decorum, abstractedly considered from intelligent beings, to whom only they could (be) servisable. It could not have been a matter of mere curiocity in God, to have made an essay of skill in the Creation and harmonizing a sensless universe, such like exertions was were not necessary for the improvement of infinite perfection since it can could receive no enlarement: for that very reason that it is was infinite. And as such a creation and harmony of mere natural things, destitute of sensibilitiy and incapable of enjoyment, could not be profitable or instructive to God, it could not be advantageous to itself, or display any wisdom, goodness or providence in God, for want of a capacity of reflection and consciousness, we may therefore with a well grounded judgement determine, that a mere Stupid creation has never taken place. And since creation has

a

a being we may infer, that intelligent creatures have been intersperced co-eval and co-extensive with it.

Thus far we reason on the plenitude of finite intelligent agents, from principles of (almost) the highest moral certainty, but when we reflect on the temperatures of those Worlds, situated, or moving in the boundless expanse of heaven, and on the amazing diversity that is possible to subsist between the specific orders of intelligent (beings) who Inhabit them their various modes of existence (inconceivable to us,) their with their diverse organization and interchangable methods of sociability, we are lost in conjecture and admiration, of other body illegible and readily perceive that our faculties of sensation and reflection, are very inadequate to conceive of the specific and intrinsic difference that there is, or may be, in (the) universal entity of either natural or moral beings.

We mortals who by nature have but five senses, know not but that there may be in the eternal and infinite creation and providence of God, a greater diversity of sorts of senses, and consequently of sensations of different objects, that we are able to innumerate, by which the specific, or distinct orders of intelligent agents in the univer(se) may obtain the Idea of equally numerous and distinct kinds of entity, of which we with our five senses can make no discovery, any more that a man born blind could of colours.

The

The short of the matter is this, all finite beings are limited, we have five senses, and the other numerous orders of finite rational beings before alluded to, may have to us an inconceivable diversity of distinct senses], Some may have ten instead of five senses, or many other number to which we are utter Strangers. From hence we infer, that it would be great weakness in us to conclude that in this weak condition of being, we can perceive or comprehend the specific kinds of entity in general, as well may the blind and deaf conclude that they can do it. We may nevertheless have a rational assurance that there can be no species or manner of entity whatever, but what Possesses, or exists of some sort of real substance as before argued, for if we do not admit this position, we only substitute in it's room castles in the air, and conceit that ourselv (Soles) and most other beings are mere nothing.

The arguments advanced by some philosophers, illegible of the infinite divi sitility of an attom of what they call solid matter, May serve to illusterate the invisibility of the soul, since mere matter may be divided so Small, as to be imperceptible to our Senses, and yet have a real existence. I am not of opinion that such an attom is capable of an infinite division or subdivision of parts, for if so, the constituant parts of the atom

merely

Merely by the divisions of its parts, would fill immen sity with its premised infinity of parts, yet if we premise that the divisions and subdivisions of it, be continued as far as in nature it is possible, or as far as omnipotent perfection could separate or divide it, and then prescribe that all its parts be broug(ht) together again and congealed as before, and it would constitute the same attom instead of filling immen -ity with its contents, for though mere division and subdivisions of matter cannot annihilate it, though if the operation be carried on as far as possible nor divest it of its entity, so on the other hand mere division could not add to its quantity of (or kind of) entity, for the dividing of matter cannot add to, or diminish from its respective quantity, (bulk) or sort of entity. The gross matter of the universe which by nature is cap -ble of division or seperation of its particles, could not and does not more than fill the universe, (nor is it probable that it composes and any very considerable part of it,) how then could the divided parts of an attom do it. From hence we infer, that an attom of matter is not infinitely divisible.

The Solution of dispute con -cerning the divisibility of matter, does not in its event respect the Subject of the present enquiry, any more than the other System of philosophy. the imperceptible divisions that are possible to an attom of incogitative matter, may however serve to illusterate our position of the

imperceptible

imperceptible substance of the essence of the Soul: not that incogitative matter could (by omnipotence it self,) be made capable of thought, reflection or consciousness, by merely by division, or by all and every method (of) composition, modificaction or constitution; since in all its parts, it is by nature destitute of intelligence or consciousness, which could not be imparted to it merely by the art of modifying or composition of its parts, for omnipotence cannot make that being to be rational, which by nature is not so. Composition or constitution, might vary an incogitative and organized being all possible ways, but could not make an addition of any power faculty or nature, which the componant parts of the machine was by nature destitute of, or super – add intelligence to that thing, which complexly consided considered was intrinsically void of it, since modification or composition is the work of formation, but not of creation, and cannot extend to any thing more than mere form formation. Yet as the subtile ether and some other and substances of mere matter, are not percep tible to our senses, (of which we shall observe in its order,) and yet have a real existence, we may therefore infer, that an intelligent being, who is by nature conscious of existence, must exist of such substance as we cannot perceive by the senses; and which is

specially