Sect.  XX.  Admirable Order in which all the Bodies that make up the Universe are ranged.

Let us now consider the wonders that shine equally both in the largest and the smallest bodies.  On the one side, I see the sun so many thousand times bigger than the earth; I see him circulating in a space, in comparison of which he is himself but a bright atom.  I see other stars, perhaps still bigger than he, that roll in other regions, still farther distant from us.  Beyond those regions, which escape all measure, I still confusedly perceive other stars, which can neither be counted nor distinguished.  The earth, on which I stand, is but one point, in proportion to the whole, in which no bound can ever be found.  The whole is so well put together, that not one single atom can be put out of its place without unhinging this immense machine; and it moves in such excellent order that its very motion perpetuates its variety and perfection.  Sure it must be the hand of a being that does everything without any trouble that still keeps steady, and governs this great work for so many ages; and whose fingers play with the universe, to speak with the Scripture.

Sect.  XXI.  Wonders of the Infinitely Little.

On the other hand the work is no less to be admired in little than in great:  for I find as well in little as in great a kind of infinite that astonishes me.  It surpasses my imagination to find in a hand-worm, as one does in an elephant or whale, limbs perfectly well organised; a head, a body, legs, and feet, as distinct and as well formed as those of the biggest animals.  There are in every part of those living atoms, muscles, nerves, veins, arteries, blood; and in that blood ramous particles and humours; in these humours some drops that are themselves composed of several particles:  nor can one ever stop in the discussion of this infinite composition of so infinite a whole.

The microscope discovers to us in every object as it were a thousand other objects that had escaped our notice.  But how many other objects are there in every object discovered by the microscope which the microscope itself cannot discover?  What should not we see if we could still subtilise and improve more and more the instruments that help out weak and dull sight?  Let us supply by our imagination what our eyes are defective in; and let our fancy itself be a kind of microscope, and represent to us in every atom a thousand new and invisible worlds:  but it will never be able incessantly to paint to us new discoveries in little bodies; it will be tired, and forced at last to stop, and sink, leaving in the smallest organ of a body a thousand wonders undiscovered.

Sect.  XXII.  Of the Structure or Frame of the Animal.

Let us confine ourselves within the animal’s machine, which has three things that never can be too much admired:  First, it has in it wherewithal to defend itself against those that attack it, in order to destroy it.  Secondly, it has a faculty of reviving itself by food.  Thirdly, it has wherewithal to perpetuate its species by generation.  Let us bestow some considerations on these three things.