Beginnings and Endings: Microcosms and Macrocosms

            In one of D’Alembert’s earlier metaphors he discusses the probability of “find[ing] out about large bodies by studying small ones” (pg 174) through the use of a drop of water observed through a microscope.  He explains that in a drop of water lives begin and end rapidly, just as our lives are brief in the scale of the endless space and time we live in. 

This micro to macro scale is used to explain Diderot’s ideas on life and death. With his argument on the fallacy of the ephemeral in which he describes a rose who claims that gardeners never die (pg 177), he makes the point that scales are crucial to our understanding of anything, mortality particularly.  To a rose, whose life is but one season, the gardener tending it is seen as immortal.  The same dependence on scale manipulates our understanding of the short lives of the creatures in the droplet of water or the brevity of our own lives as compared to the eternity that precedes and follows it. 

Diderot uses scale initially as a tool to understanding things too big or small to comprehend, but gives an extra depth to its usage by adding mortality into the mix.   He claims that witnessing supposed “spontaneous generation” in microcosms removes the need for a divine agent in nature, but he may have had other motives for this discussion as well (pg 236 note 10).  Even removing divinity from the argument, Diderot’s fascination with scale is worth exploring further.