"And has God not shown himself to be supremely admirable in varying in a hundred and more different ways the circling and coiling of a snail within itself? Could anything be more equal, more determined, more simple? And yet, in his hands, it has become capable of such great art. Some turn with volutes, one inside the other, as if they were twisting around a spindle: and as they proceed lengthwise, they become thinner and gradually taper to a point. Others, on the contrary, all return to themselves: and tell me, Archimedes, who wrote so ingeniously about them, who teaches them to draw a line so perfectly that it is not out of proportion in any way? Tell me, architects, who struggle so much to draw volutes with a ruler, and yet never anything but false ones, while, not knowing any better, they compose them from some part of a circle, and they are not circles, even though they are circular: who has instilled the rule in snails? Born masters of an art, of which they are not yet good disciples. (Book I, Chapter XI; 1659, pp. 173-174)"