are scarce sufficient to perform what makes an excellent picture?  I cannot prevail with myself to leave these instances without desiring the reader to observe that the most rational men are naturally extreme loath to think that beasts have no manner of understanding, and are mere machines.  Now, whence proceeds such an invincible averseness to that opinion in so many men of sense?  It is because they suppose, with reason, that motions so exact, and according to the rules of perfect mechanism, cannot be made without some industry; and that artless matter alone cannot perform what argues so much knowledge.  Hence it appears that sound reason naturally concludes that matter alone cannot, either by the simple laws of motion, or by the capricious strokes of chance, make even animals that are mere machines.  Those philosophers themselves, who will not allow beasts to have any reasoning faculty, cannot avoid acknowledging that what they suppose to be blind and artless in these machines is yet full of wisdom and art in the First Mover, who made their springs and regulated their movements.  Thus the most opposite philosophers perfectly agree in acknowledging that matter and chance cannot, without the help of art, produce all we observe in animals.

Sect.  IX.  A Particular Examination of Nature.

After these comparisons, about which I only desire the reader to consult himself, without any argumentation, I think it is high time to enter into a detail of Nature.  I do not pretend to penetrate through the whole; who is able to do it?  Neither do I pretend to enter into any physical discussion.  Such way of reasoning requires a certain deep knowledge, which abundance of men of wit and sense never acquired; and, therefore, I will offer nothing to them but the simple prospect of the face of Nature.  I will entertain them with nothing but what everybody knows, and which requires only a little calm and serious attention.

Sect.  X. Of the General Structure of the Universe.

Let us, in the first place, stop at the great object that first strikes our sight, I mean the general structure of the universe.  Let us cast our eyes on this earth that bears us.  Let us look on that vast arch of the skies that covers us; those immense regions of air, and depths of water that surround us; and those bright stars that light us.  A man who lives without reflecting thinks only on the parts of matter that are near him, or have any relation to his wants.  He only looks upon the earth as on the floor of his chamber, and on the sun that lights him in the daytime as on the candle that lights him in the night.  His thoughts are confined within the place he inhabits.  On the contrary, a man who is used to contemplate and reflect carries his looks further, and curiously considers the almost infinite abysses that surround him on all sides.  A large kingdom appears then to him but a little corner of the earth; the earth itself is no more to his eyes than a point in the mass of the universe; and he admires to see himself placed in it, without knowing which way he came there.