Meditation IV . . .

“It further occurs to me that we must not consider only one creature apart from the others, if we wish to determine the perfection of the works of Deity, but generally all his creatures together; for the same object that might perhaps, with some show of reason, be deemed highly imperfect if it were alone in the world, may for all that be the most perfect possible, considered as forming part of the whole universe . . . . I may occupy a place in the relation of a part to the great whole of his creatures.”

(René Descartes, Meditations. Trans. John Veitch)

http://www.wright.edu/cola/descartes/mede.html