STtJDT IV, t^t 



They fail not, likewife, to interpret her fublimc 

 operations, by the mechanifm of the arts moft fa- 

 miliar to them. Hence fo many fyftems, which 

 eafily enable you to guefs at the occupation of 

 their authors. Epicurus, exhaufted by voluptu- 

 oufnefs, framed his world and his atoms, with 

 which Providence has nothing to do, out of his 

 own apathy J the Geometrician forms it with his 

 compaffes ; the Chymifb compounds it of faits ; 

 the Mineralogift extrads it from the fire -, and 

 they who apply themfelves to nothing, and thefe 

 are not few in number, fuppofe it, like themfelves, 

 in a ftate of chaos, and moving at random. 



Thus, the corruption of the heart is the original 

 fource of our errors. Afterwards, the Sciences 

 employing, in the inveftigation of natural things, 

 definitions, principles, methods, invefted with a 

 great geometrical apparatus, feem, by this pre- 

 tended order, to reduce to order what widely de- 

 viates from it. But fuppofmg this order to exift, 

 fuch as they prefent it to us, of what ufe could ic 

 be to Man ? Would it be fufficient to reftrain, and 

 to confole, the miferable; and what intereft will 

 they take in that of a fociety which tramples them 

 under foot, when they have nothing to hope from 

 that of Nature, who abandons them to the laws of 

 motion ? 



L 4 I now 



