perfect body, infinitely surpassing the utmost stretch of human understanding. As for my part, I dare boldly affirm, that the incomprehensible greatness of the deity manifests itself in these mysterious operations in a particular manner, and affords us an opportunity of examining, as it were, with our senses, the divine nature."[1]
Long before the period when these and other valuable investigations of a similar kind were undertaken, a notable change had taken place in Swammerdam's mind, which led him to regard such pursuits in a very different light from what had been customary to him. He had always been of a devotional frame of mind, and this feeling was gradually deepened by observing the wonderful instances of design, power, and goodness, which his studies so abundantly supplied. Hence his anxiety to direct the attention of the reader, on all fitting occasions, to the Almighty Author of all the wonders his penetration enabled him to reveal, and to awaken those sentiments of devout adoration which they are so well fitted to inspire. But an event happened, apparently in the year 1672, which corrupted the source from which these feelings flowed, diverted them into a wrong channel, and ultimately brought his mind into a state of the most deplorable fanaticism. The immediate cause of this was the perusal of the works of Antoinette de la Porte Bourignon, a wild enthusiast, who was then using every effort to propagate her doctrines. She was a
- ↑ Book of Nat. II. 51.
