s if the novelty, rather than the importance, of
things ought to excite us to investigate their causes.

Is he worthy to be called a man who attributes to chance, not to an
intelligent cause, the constant motion of the heavens, the regular
courses of the stars, the agreeable proportion and connection of all
things, conducted with so much reason that our intellect itself is
unable to estimate it rightly? When we see machines move artificially,
as a sphere, a clock, or the like, do we doubt whether they are the
productions of reason? And when we behold the heavens moving with a
prodigious celerity, and causing an annual succession of the different
seasons of the year, which vivify and preserve all things, can we doubt
that this world is directed, I will not say only by reason, but by
reason most excellent and divine? For without troubling ourselves with
too refined a subtlety of discussion, we may use our eyes to
contemplate the beauty of those things which we assert have been
arranged by divine providence.

XXXIX. First, let us examine the earth, whose situation is in the
middle of the universe,[164] solid, round, and conglobular by its
natural tendency; clothed with flowers, herbs, trees, and fruits; the
whole in multitudes incredible, and with a variety suitable to every
taste: let us consider the ever-cool and running springs, the clear
waters of the rivers, the verdure of their banks, the hollow depths of
caves, the cragginess of rocks, the heights of impending mountains, and
the boundless extent of plains, the hidden veins of gold and silver,
and the infinite quarries of marble.

What and how various are the kinds of animals, tame or wild? The
flights and notes of birds? How do the beasts live in the fields and in
the forests? What shall I say of men, who, being appointed, as we may
say, to cultivate the earth, do not suffer its fertility to be choked
with weeds, nor the ferocity of beasts to make it desolate; who, by the
houses and cities which they build, adorn the fields, the isles, and
the shores? If we could view these objects with the naked eye, as we
can by the contemplation of the mind, nobody, at such a sight, would
doubt there was a divine intelligence.

But how beautiful is the sea! How pleasant to see the extent of it!
What a multitude and variety of islands! How delightful are the coasts!
What numbers and what diversity of inhabitants does it contain; some
within the bosom of it, some floating on th