The Evolution of the Sciences 



Thus we find that the infinitely small, which 

 we had thought final, has itself grown into a 

 world, and that experience leads us once more 

 to Pascal's vision: 



" What is man in infinity? Who can under- 

 stand it ? But if he desires to discover an equally 

 astonishing marvel let him study the most 

 minute things known to him. Thus a mite, in the 

 smallness of its body, presents incomparably 

 smaller parts, legs with joints, veins in these 

 legs, blood in these veins, humours in this blood, 

 drops in these humours, vapours in these drops. 

 Let him exhaust strength and invention in the 

 further division of these last things, and let the 

 last object which he can attain form the subject 

 of our discourse. He will perhaps think that this 

 is the smallest thing possible in Nature. I will 

 show him a new abyss within it. I will depict not 

 only the visible universe but all that he can 

 conceive of the immensity of Nature within the 

 bounds of this imperceptible atom. He will see 

 in it an infinitude of worlds, each with its 

 firmament, its planets, its earth in the same 

 proportions as the visible world, on this earth 

 animals, and finally mites, in which he will 



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