Page:Thoughts on art and life.djvu/52

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not exist if it were defined ? It is infinity, which if it could be defined would be limited and finite, because that which can be defined ends with the limits of its circumference, and that which cannot be defined has no limits.

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O contemplators of things, do not pride your- selves for knowing those things which nature by herself and her ordination naturally conduces ; but rejoice in knowing the purposes of those things which are determined by your mind.

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Consider, O reader, how far we can lend cre- dence to the ancients who strove to define the soul and life, — things which cannot be proved; while those things which can be clearly known and proved by experience remained during so many centuries ignored and misrepresented! The eye, which so clearly demonstrates its functions, has been up to my time defined in one manner by countless authorities; I by experience have discovered another definition.

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Although human ingenuity may devise various inventions which, by the help of various instru- ments, answer to one and the same purpose, yet

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