creation and government of the universe? "As much as the heavens are above the earth, as much," says God in the Holy Writ, "are My ways and My thoughts above yours." Let, therefore, man admire what he understands, and be silent about what he does not comprehend. But, after all, even the real defects of this work are only imperfections which God was pleased to leave in it, to put us in mind that He drew and made it from nothing. There is not anything in the universe but what does and ought equally to bear these two opposite characters: on the one side, the seal or stamp of the artificer upon his work, and, on the other, the mark of its original nothing, into which it may relapse and dwindle every moment. It is an incomprehensible mixture of low and great; of frailty in the matter, and of art in the maker? The hand of God is conspicuous in everything, even in a worm that crawls on earth. Nothingness, on the other hand, appears everywhere, even in the most vast and most sublime genius. Whatever is not God, can have but a stinted perfection; and what has but a stinted perfection, always remains imperfect on the side where the boundary is sensible, and denotes that it might be improved. If the creature wanted nothing, it would be the Creator Himself; for it would have the fulness of perfection, which is the Deity itself. Since it cannot be infinite, it must be limited in perfection, that is, it must be imperfect on one side or other. It may have more or less imperfection, but still it must be imperfect. We must ever be able to point out the very place where it is defective, and to say, upon a critical examination, "This is what it might have had, what it has not." SECT. LXXXIX. The Defects of the Universe compared with those of a Picture.