If we narrow our contemplations, and confine our thoughts to
this little canton- I mean this system of our sun, and the grosser
masses of matter that visibly move about it, What several sorts of
vegetables, animals, and intellectual corporeal beings, infinitely
different from those of our little spot of earth, may there probably
be in the other planets, to the knowledge of which, even of their
outward figures and parts, we can no way attain whilst we are confined
to this earth; there being no natural means, either by sensation or
reflection, to convey their certain ideas into our minds? They are out
of the reach of those inlets of all our knowledge: and what sorts of
furniture and inhabitants those mansions contain in them we cannot
so much as guess, much less have clear and distinct ideas of them.
25. Because of their minuteness. If a great, nay, far the greatest
part of the several ranks of bodies in the universe escape our
notice by their remoteness, there are others that are no less
concealed from us by their minuteness. These insensible corpuscles,
being the active parts of matter, and the great instruments of nature,
on which depend not only all their secondary qualities, but also
most of their natural operations, our want of precise distinct ideas
of their primary qualities keeps us in an incurable ignorance of
what we desire to know about them.
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