If a man should find in a desert island a fine statue of marble, he
would undoubtedly immediately say, "Sure, there have been men here
formerly; I perceive the workmanship of a skilful statuary; I admire
with what niceness he has proportioned all the limbs of this body,
in order to give them so much beauty, gracefulness, majesty, life,
tenderness, motion, and action!"

What would such a man answer if anybody should tell him, "That's
your mistake; a statuary never carved that figure. It is made, I
confess, with an excellent gusto, and according to the rules of
perfection; but yet it is chance alone made it. Among so many
pieces of marble there was one that formed itself of its own accord
in this manner; the rains and winds have loosened it from the
mountains; a violent storm has thrown it plumb upright on this
pedestal, which had prepared itself to support it in this place. It
is a perfect Apollo, like that of Belvedere; a Venus that equals
that of the Medicis; an Hercules, like that of Farnese. You would
think, it is true, that this figure walks, lives, thinks, and is
just going to speak. But, however, it is not in the least beholden
to art; and it is only a blind stroke of chance that has thus so
well finished and placed it."


SECT. VIII. Fourth Comparison, drawn from a Picture.


If a man had before his eyes a fine picture, representing, for
example, the passage of the Red Sea, with Moses, at whose voice the
waters divide themselves, and rise like two walls to let the
Israelites pass dryfoot through the deep, he would see, on the one