Would it not be strange, that in our sysmatic divisions, it was only to thought, and consequently to all that was most admirable in our nature, that we refuse eternity, whilst we grant it to matter and its blind combinations? What a subversion of all proportion! that we should believe in the eternal existence of matter, because it is present to our eyes, and yet not admit the eternal existence of an intelligence; whilst that which we are endowed with becomes the source of our judgment, and even the guide of our senses! And by what other singularity we should grant the faculty and the consciousness of intelligence, only to that small part of the world which is represented by animated beings? Thus, the whole of nature would be below a part; and if no spirit animated the universe, man would appear to have reached his ultimate perfection; though we see in him but a faint sketch, a weak shadow of something more complete and admirable; we perceive that he is, to speak thus, at the commencement of thinking; and all his cares, all his efforts, to extend the empire of that faculty, only inform him, that he tends continually towards an end, from which he is always distant; in short, in his greatest exertions he feels his weakness; he studies, but he cannot know himself; he makes a few petty discoveries, sees some trifling wheels, whilst the main spring escapes his search: he is fallen into the world, like a grain of sand thrown by the winds; he has neither a consciousness of his origin, nor a foresight of his end; we perceive in him all the timidity and mistrust of a dependent being; he is constrained, by instinct, to raise to heaven his wishes and contemplations; and, when he is not led astray by an intoxicating reason, he fears, seeks to adore a god, and rejects with disdain the rank which audacious philosophers assign him in the order of nature. I must also add, that the sentiment of admiration, which I cannot stifle, when I turn my attention on the spiritual qualities we are endowed with, would be insensibly weakened, if I was reduced to consider man himself as a simple growth of blind matter; for the most astonishing production would only inspire me with a transitory emotion, unless I can refer it to an intelligent cause: I must discover a design, a combination, before I admire; as I have need to perceive feeling and affection, before I love. But as soon as I see in the human mind the stamp of Omnipotence; and it appears to me one of the results of a grand thought; it reasumes its dignity, and all the faculties of my soul are prostrate before such a wonderful conception.