A tree increases daily,
and it is impossible to conceive how it becomes greater than it was
before, unless we at the same time conceive that some body is added
to it. But who ever observed by the senses those small bodies that
are in one day added to a tree while growing? Among the philosophers
at least, those who hold that quantity is indefinitely divisible,
ought to admit that in the division the parts may become so small as
to be wholly imperceptible. And indeed it ought not to be a matter
of surprise, that we are unable to perceive very minute bodies; for
the nerves that must be moved by objects to cause perception are not
themselves very minute, but are like small cords, being composed of
a quantity of smaller fibres, and thus the most minute bodies are
not capable of moving them. Nor do I think that any one who makes
use of his reason will deny that we philosophize with much greater
truth when we judge of what takes place in those small bodies which
are imperceptible from their minuteness only, after the analogy of
what we see occurring in those we do perceive, [and in this way
explain all that is in nature, as I have essayed to do in this
treatise], than when we give an explanation of the same things by
inventing I know not what novelties, that have no relation to the
things we actually perceive, [as first matter, substantial forms,
and all that grand array of qualities which many are in the habit of
supposing, each of which is more difficult to comprehend than all
that is professed to be explained by means of them].
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