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INSTITUTES OF METAPHYSIC.
PROP. VII.————
ating creatures of existence, or fluctuating objects of cognition? In other words, is it the existence of them which is evanescent, or is it the knowledge of them which is evanescent? Is the generation and the corruption which they speak of as the characteristic of all material things, to be understood as a cessation and a restoration of Being, or as a cessation and a restoration of Knowing?
Demur as to matter being the fluctuating in existence.16. It is necessary to come to a right understanding on this point, because, while the statement may be very readily acquiesced in as an epistemological truth, it must naturally occasion considerable demur if propounded as an ontological tenet. Who can bear to be told, without some preparatory explanation at least, that a mountain is constantly fluctuating, that a forest of oak trees is evanescent, that there is no permanency in a stone, that the chair on which he sits is in a state of perpetual fluidity, and that all things are running away before his eyes? And let it not be supposed that all that such a statement can mean is, that processes of renovation and decay are continually at work over the whole length and breadth of the creation. Such a trivial remark as that fell not within the scope of Greek observation. Speculation had then a higher aim than to inform people that the earth is continually changing, and that not a minute passes over the grassy fields, or the summer woods, or the wintry