|
|
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
divi
|
|