wonder at the fact that this vast circle is itself but a very fine
point in comparison with that described by the stars in their
revolution round the firmament. But if our view be arrested there, let
our imagination pass beyond; it will sooner exhaust the power of
conception than nature that of supplying material for conception.
The whole visible world is only an imperceptible atom in the ample
bosom of nature. No idea approaches it. We may enlarge our conceptions
beyond an imaginable space; we only produce atoms in comparison with
the reality of things. It is an infinite sphere, the centre of which
is everywhere, the circumference nowhere. In short, it is the greatest
sensible mark of the almighty power of God that imagination loses
itself in that thought.

    Returning to himself, let man consider what he is in comparison
with all existence; let him regard himself as lost in this remote
corner of nature; and from the little cell in which he finds himself
lodged, I mean the universe, let him estimate at their true value
the earth, kingdoms, cities, and himself. What is a man in the
Infinite?

    But to show him another prodigy equally astonishing, let him
examine the most delicate things he knows. Let a mite be given him,
with its minute body and parts incomparably more minute, limbs with
their joints, veins in the limbs, blood in the veins, humours in the
blood, drops in the humours, vapours in the drops. Dividing these last
things again, let him exhaust his powers of conception, and let the
last object at which he can arrive be now that of our discourse.
Perhaps he will think that here is the smallest point in nature. I
will let him see therein a new abyss. I will paint for him not only
the visible universe, but all that he can conceive of nature's
immensity in the womb of this abridged atom. Let him see therein an
infinity of universes, each of which has its firmament, its planets,
its earth, in the same proportion as in the visible world; in each
earth animals, and in the last mites, in which he will find again
all that the first had, finding still in these others the same thing
without end and without cessation. Let him lose himself in wonders
as amazing in their littleness as the others in their vastness. For
who will not be astounded at the fact that our body, which a little
while ago was imperceptible in the universe, itself imperceptible in
the bosom of the whole, is now a colossus, a world, or rather a whole,
in respect of the nothingness which we cannot reach? He who regards
himself in this light will be afraid of himself, and observing himself
sustained in the body given him by nature between those two abysses of
the Infinite and Nothing, will tremble at the sight of these
marvels; and I think that, as his curiosity changes into admiration,
he will be more disposed to contemplate them in silence than to
examine them with presumption.

    For, in fact, what is man in nature? A Nothing in comparison
with the Infinite, an All in comparison with the Nothing, a mean
between nothing and everything. Since he is infinitely removed from
comprehending the extremes, the end of things and their beginning
are hopelessly hidden from him in an impenetrable secret; he is
equally incapable of seeing the Nothing from which he was made, and
the Infinite in which he is swallowed up.

    What will he do then, but perceive the appearance of the middle of
things, in an eternal despair of knowing either their beginning or
their end. All things proceed from the Nothing, and are borne
towards the Infinite. Who will follow these marvellous processes?
The Author of these wonders understands them. None other can do so.

    Through failure to contemplate these Infinites, men have rashly
rushed into the examination of nature, as though they bore some
proportion to her. It is strange that they have wished to understand
the beginnings of things, and thence to arrive at the knowledge of the
whole, with a presumption as infinite as their object. For surely this
design cannot be formed without presumption or without a capacity
infinite like nature.

    If we are well informed, we understand that, as nature has
graven her image and that of her Author on all things, they almost all
partake of her double infinity. Thus we see that all the sciences
are infinite in the extent of their researches. For who doubts that
geometry, for instance, has an infinite infinity of problems to solve?
They are also infinite in the multitude and fineness of their
premises; for it is clear that those which are put forward as ultimate
are not self-supporting, but are based on others which, again having
others for their support, do not permit of finality. But we
represent some as ultimate for reason, in the same way as in regard to
material objects we call that an indivisible point beyond which our
senses can no longer perceive anything, although by its nature it is
infinitely divisible.

    Of these two Infinites of science, that of greatness is the most
palpable, and hence a few persons have pretended to know all things.
"I will speak of the whole," said Democritus.

    But the infinitely little is the least obvious. Philosophers
have much oftener claimed to have reached it, and it is here they have
all stumbled. This has given rise to such common titles as First
Principles, Principles of Philosophy, and the like, as ostentatious in
fact, though not in appearance, as that one which blinds us, De omni
scibili.*

    * Title given by Pico della Mirandola to one of his proposed
nine hundred theses, in 1486.

    We naturally believe ourselves far more capable of reaching the
centre of things than of embracing their circumference. The visible