Chap. X. AN TIE NT METAPHYSICS, 139 



We may obferve here in pafling, that the brute has tliis in com- 

 mon witli the vegetable ; that the -principle or mind^ as 1 chufe 

 to call it, of the vegetable, does every thing neceflary for the 

 prefervation of the individual fubftance to which it is united, 

 and for the propagation of the kind, as well as the brute, 

 and, like him, without knowing that it does fo. But there is this dif- 

 ference betwixt them, that the brute has pleafure in attaining thofe 

 things which nature direds him to purfue, and pain when he is dif- 

 appointed of his purfuiis, and meets with the contrary of what he de- 

 fires : Whereas the vegetable has no fenfe either of pleafure or pain; 

 and in this chiefly confifts the difference betwixt ihtfenftthvc and ve- 

 getable nature : — But of this more afterwards. 



To conclude this comparifon of the human and brute natures^ 

 the whole matter com<^s to this iffue : The humanmind^ though immer- 

 fed at firft in matter, as well as that of every other animal here be- 

 low, can emerge from it; and, by exerting its native power, can. adt 

 without the afli (lance of the body, v;hich it is fo far from 

 needing in thefe operations, that it is incumbered and obflruded 

 by it. By this power it tranfports itfelf, as it were, into that i- 

 deal world, which every man, who believes in God, muft believe to 

 be the archetype of this material world ; and, in this way, may be 

 l^id to <:onverfe with thofe eternaiyor^/j of things in the divine mind, 

 of which all things we fee here are but fliadows. And not only does 

 our mind thus open to itfelf a newwwld, but, by the ftudy of Its own 

 nature, it difcovers mind itfelf-, and rifes,as near as it is pofllble for us, 

 under this load of flefli, to that fupreme mind^ the author of nature, 

 and every thing in nature, whether ideal or material. By ftudles of this 

 kind, we attain, in fome degree, to what we conceive to be the divine, the 

 chief perfedion of mind^the ability to employ itfelf within itfelf, without 

 Ihe Jean dependence upon, or connedion with, any thing external. Nor is it 



S ^ pofTiblc 



