But there is a less perfect way, level to the meanest capacity. Men
the least exercised in reasoning, and the most tenacious of the
prejudices of the senses, may yet with one look discover Him who has
drawn Himself in all His works. The wisdom and power He has stamped
upon everything He has made are seen, as it were, in a glass by
those that cannot contemplate Him in His own idea. This is a
sensible and popular philosophy, of which any man free from passion
and prejudice is capable. Humana autem anima rationalis est, quae
mortalibus peccati poena tenebatur, ad hoc diminutionis redacta ut
per conjecturas rerum visibilium ad intelligenda invisibilia
niteretur; that is, "The human soul is still rational, but in such a
manner that, being by the punishment of sin detained in the bonds of
death, it is so far reduced that it can only endeavour to arrive at
the knowledge of things invisible through the visible."


SECT. III. Why so few Persons are attentive to the Proofs Nature
affords of the Existence of God.


If a great number of men of subtle and penetrating wit have not
discovered God with one cast of the eye upon nature, it is not
matter of wonder; for either the passions they have been tossed by
have still rendered them incapable of any fixed reflection, or the
false prejudices that result from passions have, like a thick cloud,
interposed between their eyes and that noble spectacle. A man
deeply concerned in an affair of great importance, that should take
up all the attention of his mind, might pass several days in a room
treating about his concerns without taking notice of the proportions