is the smallest point in nature. I will let him see therein a new abyss.
I will paint for him not only the visible universe, but all that he can
conceive of nature's immensity in the womb of this abridged atom. Let
him see therein an infinity of universes, each of which has its
firmament, its planets, its earth, in the same proportion as in the
visible world; in each earth animals, and in the last mites, in which he
will find again all that the first had, finding still in these others
the same thing without end and without cessation. Let him lose himself
in wonders as amazing in their littleness as the others in their
vastness. For who will not be astounded at the fact that our body, which
a little while ago was imperceptible in the universe, itself
imperceptible in the bosom of the whole, is now a colossus, a world, or
rather a whole, in respect of the nothingness which we cannot reach? He
who regards himself in this light will be afraid of himself, and
observing himself sustained in the body given him by nature between
those two abysses of the Infinite and Nothing, will tremble at the sight
of these marvels; and I think that, as his curiosity changes into
admiration, he will be more disposed to contemplate them in silence than
to examine them with presumption.

For in fact what is man in nature? A Nothing in comparison with the
Infinite, an All in comparison with the Nothing, a mean between nothing
and everything. Since he is infinitely removed from comprehending the
extremes, the end of things and their beginning are hopelessly hidden
from him in an impenetrable secret, he is equally incapable of seeing
the Nothing from which he was made, and the Infinite in which he is
swallowed up.

What will he do then, but perceive the appearance of the middle of
things, in an eternal despair of knowing either their beginning or their