The ways of God in Nature, as in Providence...

[Mher]

Hi. Please help me to interpret this epigraph: "The ways of God in Nature, as in Providence, are not as our ways; nor are the models that we frame any way commensurate to the vastness, profundity, and unsearchableness of His works, which have a depth in them greater than the well of Democritus."
Is there any synonym for "ways" here?

 

[BobK]

ways = the way someone does things (general behaviour).

There is a missing 'in'. The models are not 'in any way commensurate [='having the same dimensions as'] the vastness, profundity...'

The Well of Democritus is probably covered somewhere in Wikipedia, but I can't find it. From the context I'd guess that it was Jolly Deep;-)

b

 

[JMurray]

not a teacher

As I understand it, the Greek philosopher Democritus proposed that nature was made up of atom-like particles, that there were an infinite number of these particles and that the universe itself was boundless. Poe is quoting a 17th century writer called Joseph Glanville, who employed the metaphor of the Well of Democritus to convey a sense of limitless profundity.