Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 5.djvu/11



HILOSOPHERS say, that man is a microcosm, or little world, resembling in miniature every part of the great: and, in my opinion, the body natural may be compared to the body politick: and if this be so, how can the epicurean's opinion be true, that the universe was formed by a fortuitous concourse of atoms: which I will no more believe, than that the accidental jumbling of the letters of the alphabet, could fall by chance into a most ingenious and learned treatise of philosophy. Risum teneatis amici? [ . ] This false opinion must needs create many more; it is like an errour in the first concoction, which cannot be corrected in the second; the foundation is weak, and whatever superstructure you raise upon it, must of necessity fall to the ground. Thus men are led from one errour to another, until with Ixion they embrace a cloud instead of Juno; or like the dog in the fable lose the substance in gaping at the shadow. For such opinions cannot cohere; but like the iron and clay in the toes of Nebuchadnezzar's image, must separate and break in pieces. I have read in a Rh