end. All things proceed from the Nothing, and are borne towards the
Infinite. Who will follow these marvellous processes? The Author of
these wonders understands them. None other can do so.

Through failure to contemplate these Infinites, men have rashly rushed
into the examination of nature, as though they bore some proportion to
her. It is strange that they have wished to understand the beginnings of
things, and thence to arrive at the knowledge of the whole, with a
presumption as infinite as their object. For surely this design cannot
be formed without presumption or without a capacity infinite like
nature.

If we are well informed, we understand that, as nature has graven her
image and that of her Author on all things, they almost all partake of
her double infinity. Thus we see that all the sciences are infinite in
the extent of their researches. For who doubts that geometry, for
instance, has an infinite infinity of problems to solve? They are also
infinite in the multitude and fineness of their premises; for it is
clear that those which are put forward as ultimate are not
self-supporting, but are based on others which, again having others for
their support, do not permit of finality. But we represent some as
ultimate for reason, in the same way as in regard to material objects we
call that an indivisible point beyond which our senses can no longer
perceive anything, although by its nature it is infinitely divisible.

Of these two Infinites of science, that of greatness is the most
palpable, and hence a few persons have pretended to know all things. "I
will speak of the whole,"[31] said Democritus.

But the infinitely little is the least obvious. Philosophers have much