lOO ANTTENT METAPHYSICS. Book II. 



nature; thoui^jh I think, by the intimate knowledge we attain of its 

 operations, we may come much nearer to the knowledge of its eflence 

 than of that ot body. 



The dncHirine of ui'ind Is no lefs comprehenfive than it is ufeful and 

 in-.portant. For, as rnmd is the caufe of all iJiotioriy whatever is moved, 

 that is, the whole miiverfe, and all the various 7?ioving principles we 

 fee in it, belong to the philofophy of nmid. Thefe principles are fo 

 conneded together, as well as every thing elfe in nature, that it is im- 

 poiTiMe to underftand perfedly one kind of them without knowing 

 likewife the other. 



That mtndt which pervades and animates the whole univerfe, and 

 is the principle of that motion which is eflential to all phyfical bodies, 

 is the foundation, as we have feen, of all kinds of life, the 'vegetable^ 

 the animal, and the rational. In like manner, the vegetable is the foun- 

 dation of the animal, and the animal agsan of the ratiotial. So that there 

 is no void in this part of nature, any more than in the corporeal; but e- 

 very kind of life is infeparably connected with another, all hanging to- 

 gether in one indifToluble chain, and each fupporting, or fupport- 

 ed by the other. The confequence of which is, that, what is 

 moft perfed of ?nind embodied, muft neceffarily be joined with 

 what is moft imperfeift. And they are fo neceffarily depending 

 one upon another, that what is moft perfed in the lower order 

 of mifids, is moft imperfed in the order immediately above; 

 but, at the fame lime, is the foundation of its greateft per- 

 fedion. For example, what I obferved to be the greateft perfedion 

 of the brute nature, and which brought it the neareft to humanity, 

 namelv, the faculty of comparing its peiceptions, is the loweft of the 

 intelletlual mind ; but, at the fame time, that, without which, it could 

 not perform its energies, nor be what it is, as 1 fhall preiently Ihow. 



The rntional, or, to fpeak more properly, the intelleBiial life, being, 

 si& 1 obici ved, no more than a fuperftrudure upon the animal-, as I 



concluded 



