DISPUTATION

On the

Principles of the Human Body.

The utility of natural philosophy is primary and hardly expressible, since it suggests to the industrious cultivator an accurate and genuine knowledge of himself, of the world, and, through these, even of GOD himself. Without this, all things, whether sacred or profane, seem to tremble and exist in slippery uncertainty. For what reveals and proves the actual certainty of a certain divine Creator more than the most admirable construction of the microcosm, which surpasses the powers of any created agent by nearly infinite distances and, above all, by reason itself? What confirms the necessary existence of a Power that is as wise as it is supreme more than that stupendous order and structure of the universe, which transcends the entire strength of all men combined by an infinite measure,

not to mention the matter, form, and nearly innumerable phenomena of the individual bodies contained within the borders of the world, even the most abject ones? So much so that any person is forced to confess that this divine power is not only infallibly recognized but almost seen with the eyes and all but touched by the hands. The great moment of this, and the great necessity of knowing the divinity, has long since been established by the unanimous consent of all ages, so that to speak more of it is only to do what has already been done. But which of all men would know and more deeply recognize this great moment and this necessity, unless he had first penetrated somewhat more accurately into the parts composing the mass of the whole world? Unless he who knows how to deduce the matter and form of the world and its beginning from evident things, and likewise to establish its end?