SECT.  L.  The Mind of Man is mixed with Greatness and Weakness.  Its Greatness consists in two things.  First, the Mind has the Idea of the Infinite.

Let us conclude these observations by a short reflection on the essence of our mind; in which I find an incomprehensible mixture of greatness and weakness.  Its greatness is real: for it brings together the past and the present, without confusion; and by its reasoning penetrates into futurity.  It has the idea both of bodies and spirits.  Nay, it has the idea of the infinite: for it supposes and affirms all that belongs to it, and rejects and denies all that is not proper to it.  If you say that the infinite is triangular, the mind will answer without hesitation, that what has no bounds can have no figure.  If you desire it to assign the first of the units that make up an infinite number, it will readily answer, that there can be no beginning, end, or number in the infinite; because if one could find either a first or last unit in it, one might add some other unit to that, and consequently increase the number.  Now a number cannot be infinite, when it is capable of some addition, and when a limit may be assigned to it, on the side where it may receive an increase.