requires; and when we possess the idea of God, nature reveals to us His
power and His wisdom.

This is an old argument, and they call it commonplace. It is
commonplace, in fact; it has appeared over and over again in the
discourses of Socrates, in the writings of Galen, of Kepler, of Newton,
of Linnæus. Yes, this argument has fallen so low as to be public
property, if we can say that truth falls when it shines with a splendor
vivid enough to enlighten the masses. If I desired to bring together
here the testimony of all the savants who have seen God in nature, the
song of all the poets who have celebrated the glory of the Eternal as
manifested by the creation, the enumeration would be long, and I should
soon tire out your patience. You can understand therefore that if there
are, as the misanthrope Rousseau says there are, philosophers who hold
in such contempt vulgar opinions that they prefer error of their own
discovery to truth found out by other people, then the ancient argument,
which infers the wisdom of the Creator from the order of the creation,
must be the object of but small esteem with them. Still I for my part
take this old argument for a good one, and I mean to defend it.

Nature is verily and indeed a marvel placed before the observation of
our minds. The growth of a blade of grass, the habits of an ant, contain
for an attentive observer prodigies of wisdom. A drop of dew reflecting
the beams of morning, the play of light among the leaves of a tree,
reveal to the poet and the artist treasures of poetry. But too often,
blinded by habit, we are unable to see; and when our mind is asleep, it
seems to us that the universe slumbers. A sudden flash of light can
sometimes arouse us from this lethargy. If science all at once delivers
up to us some one of those grand laws which reveal in thousands of
phenomena the traces of one and the same mind, the astonishment of our