6 THE UNIVERSE. 



pole, the Andes and America rise from the bosom of the 

 sea; then the startled waves, tumultuously pouring over 

 the ancient world, produce one of the more recent catas- 

 trophes, the great deluge. Thus the supreme Power de- 

 creed ! 



When, after having viewed the imposing phenomena 

 which are taking place on the surface of the earth, we look 

 down upon its tiniest inhabitants, we see revealed, in unex- 

 pected magnificence, the wisdom of Providence ; erelong 

 the spectacle of immensity in what is infinitely little aston- 

 ishes us no less than the immeasurable power displayed in 

 the grand scenes of creation. Animate life recalls to mind 

 the ancient doctrine of pantheism, according to which every 

 molecule of created matter was imbued with a portion of 

 the all-pervading deity ; so life reveals itself everywhere : 

 armed with the microscope, the eye discovers traces of it in 

 every interstice of matter. 



Fontenelle, the learned secretary of the Academy, used 

 to inveigh against the ancient verbose scholasticism, which 

 he rightly called the philosophy of words. He would have 

 had the intellect occupied solely with facts, with the phi- 

 losophy of things. We are about to prove ourselves follow- 

 ers of his precepts by restricting ourselves to the results of 

 observation. 



Nothing gives a more brilliant idea of the universal dif- 

 fusion of life throughout space than the prodigious number 

 of organisms which we meet everywhere and in all bodies. 

 The demonstration of this fact is one of the most recent 

 and magnificent conquests achieved by science. 



We owe it to the microscope, discovered about a century 



