t the same time it is
founded on no less than the Evidence of a Demonstration. Nay, we might
yet carry it farther, and discover in the smallest Particle of this
little World a new and inexhausted Fund of Matter, capable of being spun
out into another Universe.

I have dwelt the longer on this Subject, because I think it may shew us
the proper Limits, as well as the Defectiveness of our Imagination; how
it is confined to a very small Quantity of Space, and immediately stopt
in its Operations, when it endeavours to take in any thing that is very
great, or very little. Let a Man try to conceive the different Bulk of
an Animal, which is twenty, from another which is a hundred times less
than a Mite, or to compare, in his Thoughts, a length of a thousand
Diameters of the Earth, with that of a Million, and he will quickly find
that he has no different Measures in his Mind, adjusted to such
extraordinary Degrees of Grandeur or Minuteness. The Understanding,
indeed, opens an infinite Space on every side of us, but the
Imagination, after a few faint Efforts, is immediately at a stand, and
finds her self swallowed up in the Immensity of the Void that surrounds
it: Our Reason can pursue a Particle of Matter through an infinite
Variety of Divisions, but the Fancy soon loses sight of it, and feels in
it self a kind of Chasm, that wants to be filled with Matter of a more
sensible Bulk. We can neither widen, nor contract the Faculty to the
Dimensions of either Extreme. The Object is too big for our Capacity,
when we would comprehend the Circumference of a World, and dwindles into
nothing, when we endeavour after the Idea of an Atome.

It is possible this defect of Imagination may not be in the Soul it
self, but as it acts in Conjunction with the Body. Perhaps there may not
be room in the Brain for such a variety of Impressions, or the Animal
Spirits may be incapable of figuring them in such a manner, as is
necessary to excite so very large or very minute Ideas. However it be,
we may well suppose that Beings of a higher Nature very much excel us in
this respect, as it is probable the Soul of Man will be infinitely more
perfect hereafter in this Faculty, as well as in all the rest; insomuch
that, perhaps, the Imagination will be able to keep Pace with the
Understanding, and to form in it self distinct Ideas of all the
different Modes and Quantities of Space.

O.

[Footnote 1: [that]]

[Footnote 2: [that]]

*