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92 Corycctures on Fict'u7‘z'ty.
If our reflex knowledge is derived from our intuitive knowledge;
if our intellectual riches increase by the comparisons which we form
among our sensible ideas of all kinds; if in short, our understanding3
are unfolded, -and perfected in proportion as our compan'sons-extend;
diversify and multiply themselves; what will not be the increase and
perfection of our natural knowledge, when we shall be no longer’t:0n-
fined to compare individuals with individuals, species with speciesf
kingdoms with kingdoms, but shall be enabled to compare worlds with
worlds ? ' ' ‘ i ”
If the Supreme Intelligence has varied all his works here below; if '
he has created ‘nothing identically the same; if an harmonious 'pro3
gression reigns among all earthlybeings; if the same chain compre-
lreiids“ them all, howprobable is it, that this wonderful chain extends‘
itself‘ into all the planetary worlds, that it unites them all, and that
they are thus constituent parts of the same series? -
- We discover at present of this great chain only a few links: we are
not even sure that we observe them in their nattual order: we follow
this natural "progression only imperfectly and with numberless turns
and windings: and we meet with frequent interruptions ;“ but we always
perceive that they are not so properly chasms of the chain, as of our
knowledge. ‘ >
When we shall have been allowed to contemplate this chain, as I
have supposed these’ intelligences contemplate it, for whom our world
seems to have been principally formed; when we shall be able like
them; to follow the prolongations of it into other worlds; then, and
then 0111)’. shall we know the natural order of 1 the links, their ‘reciprocal
dependence, their secret relations, the proximate reason of each link;
and we shall raise ourselvesthus by a ladder of sepafate perfeetiorrs,< to
truths the most transcendent and luminous. '
With what sentiments will our souls be tilled, when after having
studied the oeconomy of one world, we shall go to aimmm-, and com-
pare’ their different eeconomies? How great win be the perfection of
our cosmology, the generalization and richness of our principles? How,
abundant the connexion, the multitude and justnsss of the conse-
quences we shall derive from them; What light will be reflected fI‘Ql11
so many different objects upon other branches of our knowledge, upon
our physics, our’ geometry, our astronomy, the rational sciences, and
principally upon the divine. science which employs itself upon the Being
of Beings? ‘ '
All truths are connected, ,and the most distant ones are held to‘
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