Page:The Works of the Rev. Jonathan Swift, Volume 5.djvu/12

4 certain author, that Alexander wept because he had no more worlds to conquer; which he needed not have done, if the fortuitous concourse of atoms could create one: but this is an opinion, fitter for that many headed beast the vulgar, to entertain, than for so wise a man as Epicurus; the corrupt part of his sect only borrowed his name, as the monkey did the cat's claw, to draw the chesnut out of the fire.

However, the first step to the cure, is to know the disease; and though truth may be difficult to find, because, as the philosopher observes, she lives in the bottom of a well, yet we need not, like blind men, grope in open daylight. I hope I may be allowed, among so many far more learned men, to offer my mite, since a standerby may sometimes perhaps see more of the game, than he that plays it. But I do not think a philosopher obliged to account for every phenomenon in nature, or drown himself with Aristotle, for not being able to solve the ebbing and flowing of the tide, in that fatal sentence he passed upon himself, Quia te non capio, tu capies me. Wherein he was at once the judge and the criminal, the accuser and executioner. Socrates, on the other hand, who said he knew nothing, was pronounced by the oracle to be the wisest man in the world.

But to return from this digression: I think it as clear as any demonstration of Euclid, that Nature does nothing in vain; if we were able to dive into her secret recesses, we should find that the smallest blade of grass, or most contemptible weed, has its particular use: but she is chiefly admirable in her minutest compositions, the least and most contemptible insect, most discovers the art of nature, if I may