anything but God himself who has created it, and without educing them from
any other source than from certain germs of truths naturally existing in
our minds In the second place, I examined what were the first and most
ordinary effects that could be deduced from these causes; and it appears
to me that, in this way, I have found heavens, stars, an earth, and even
on the earth water, air, fire, minerals, and some other things of this
kind, which of all others are the most common and simple, and hence the
easiest to know. Afterwards when I wished to descend to the more
particular, so many diverse objects presented themselves to me, that I
believed it to be impossible for the human mind to distinguish the forms
or species of bodies that are upon the earth, from an infinity of others
which might have been, if it had pleased God to place them there, or
consequently to apply them to our use, unless we rise to causes through
their effects, and avail ourselves of many particular experiments.
Thereupon, turning over in my mind I the objects that had ever been
presented to my senses I freely venture to state that I have never
observed any which I could not satisfactorily explain by the principles
had discovered. But it is necessary also to confess that the power of
nature is so ample and vast, and these principles so simple and general,
that I have hardly observed a single particular effect which I cannot at
once recognize as capable of being deduced in man different modes from the
principles, and that my greatest difficulty usually is to discover in
which of these modes the effect is dependent upon them; for out of this
difficulty cannot otherwise extricate myself than by again seeking certain
experiments, which may be such that their result is not the same, if it is
in the one of these modes at we must explain it, as it would be if it were
to be explained in the other. As to what remains, I am now in a position
to discern, as I think, with sufficient clearness what course must be taken
to make the majority those experiments which may conduce to this end: but
I perceive likewise that they are such and so numerous, that neither my