hould take
up all the attention of his mind, might pass several days in a room
treating about his concerns without taking notice of the proportions
of the chamber, the ornaments of the chimney, and the pictures about
him, all which objects would continually be before his eyes, and yet
none of them make any impression upon him. In this manner it is
that men spend their lives; everything offers God to their sight,
and yet they see it nowhere. "He was in the world, and the world
was made by Him, and nevertheless the world did not know Him"--In
mundo erat, et mundus per ipsum factus est, et mundus eum non
cognovit. They pass away their lives without perceiving that
sensible representation of the Deity. Such is the fascination of
worldly trifles that obscures their eyes! Fascinatio nugacitatis
obscurat bona. Nay, oftentimes they will not so much as open them,
but rather affect to keep them shut, lest they should find Him they
do not look for. In short, what ought to help most to open their
eyes serves only to close them faster; I mean the constant duration
and regularity of the motions which the Supreme Wisdom has put in
the universe. St. Austin tells us those great wonders have been
debased by being constantly renewed; and Tully speaks exactly in the
same manner. "By seeing every day the same things, the mind grows
familiar with them as well as the eyes. It neither admires nor
inquires into the causes of effects that are ever seen to happen in
the same manner, as if it were the novelty, and not the importance
of the thing itself, that should excite us to such an inquiry." Sed
assiduitate quotidiana et consuetudine oculorum assuescunt animi,
neque admirantur neque requirunt rationes earum rerum, quas semper
vident, perinde quasi novit as nos magis quam magnitudo rerum debeat
ad exquirendas causas excitare.

SECT. IV. All Nature shows the Existence of its Maker.

But, after all, whole nature shows the infinite art of its Maker.
When I speak of an art, I mean a collection of proper means chosen
on purpose to arrive at a certain end; or, if you please, it is an
order, a method, an industry, or a set design. Chance, on the
contrary, is a blind and necessary cause, which neither sets in
order nor chooses anything, and which has neither will nor
understanding. Now I maintain that the universe bears the character
and stamp of a cause infinitely powerful and industrious; and, at
the same time, that chance (that