Dr. Goring on the neiv Microscopes, Sj^o' 119 



than insects devouring each other in a ball of clay,) should 

 take upon themselves to ridicule and deride those who merely 

 gaze upon and admire the minutiae which she has chosen to 

 execute in so inimitable and so exquisite a style ? Parva laeves 

 capiant animos, it is said ; but I say it is not only unscientific 

 but even swinish and ridiculous to contemn anything merely 

 on account of its minuteness. Will any one pretend to ad- 

 vance, that if human beings had been made as perfect as they 

 are upon a scale of an inch to a foot, they would have been 

 less worthy of their divine author* ? Or to put a case which 

 will come better home to our clumsy feelings, clumsy senses, 

 and clumsy fingers, suppose the automaton chess-player had 

 been made on a scale of -}^ inch to a foot, would it have been 

 less worthy of admiration, as a work of art? 



Again, suppose some individual greatly distinguished for his 

 talents in ship building, in the formation of steam-engines and 

 astronomical instruments, and the like, was also to exhibit a 

 passion for making musical seals and snuff-boxes, or even such 

 Curiosities as a dozen of silver spoons in a cherry stone, or a 

 coach drawn by fleas, would it be good breeding or good taste 

 to contemn and ridicule his minute labours, while we extolled 

 his grander and more imposing works ? Now it appears to me, 

 that the Supreme Being does in some sense resemble such an 

 individual ; for there is nothing too grand or too petite, too sub- 

 lime or too humble, too minute or too exquisite, to be above or 

 below his consideration. His power loves to display itself i?i 

 every possible way in which it can be displayed; and I cannot help 

 thinking myself, that those who despise the minute works of 

 God, while they affect to admire the great wonders of his crea- 

 tion, are guilty of a species of impiety, and must be either 

 liars, or hypocrites, or fools. People are perpetually wondering 

 at what can be the use of bugs and fleas, and wasps and such 

 kind of vermin, and speak of them as if they were absolute 



* Proportioning the cause to the effect, we might be led to the conclusion, that 

 excessive minuteness has a certain power of fettering and confining the operations 

 of nature. It seems certain, that the smaller animated beings become, the more 

 simple is their structure : the termination, or if we please, the beginning of the 

 Scale in the Monas Termo and other animalcules of tb 

 mere animated vesicles or hydatyds on the small scale. 



