56 OF THE SYSTEMS OF PTOLEMY, 1

ourselves no nearer to a term or limit; for allsthft is nothing to what may be displayed in the 1infinite expanse, beyond the remotest stars that Ihave ever been discovered. I

And, in like manner, if we descend in the!scale of nature, towards the other limit, we find ja like gradation from minute objects to othersinconceivably more subtile ; and are led as farbelow sensible measures, as we were before car-ried above them, by similar steps, which soonbecome hid to us in equal obscurity. From mi-croscopic observations that discover animals,thousands of which would scarcely form a par-ticle discernible to the naked eye; from the pro-pagation, nourishment, and growth of thoseanimals; from the subtilty of the effluvia of bo-dies, which retain their particular propertiesafter the utmost degree of rarefaction; frommany astonishing experiments of the chemists;and especially from the inconceivable minutenessof the particles of light, which find a passagethrough the pores of transparent bodies in allmanner of directions ; it appears, that the sub-divisions of the parts of bodies descend by anumber of steps or gradations that surpasses allimagination, and that nature is inexhaustibleon every side, the two extremes of great andsmall being equally removed from our com-prehension.

Nor