142 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book H, 



apprchcnfwn ; for that is its only operation in its feparated and per- 

 fect ftate : But as, in this ftate, it muft neceflfarily operate by difcourfe 

 of reafoihz.uA apprehend complex truth, that is,the /r?///j of propofitionsy 

 I have ahb afcribed that operation to it. 



The account of the brute mitid, in oppofition to this of the humane 

 is very Ihort. He perceives only material objedts, either prefent or 

 abfent, by the means of the phantafia, which I confider as a bodily 

 organ, and a kind of fecondary fenfe. He converfes, therefore, only 

 v'ith Jtmtter^ and ads only by the body^ through the body, and for the 

 purpofes of the body ; that is, for the prefervarion and propagation of 

 the animal life ; and all his inclinations and defires have that tenden- 

 cy. His gnojiic powers, therefore, are all connedted with the body ; 

 and, as to the practical part, he is, as we have feen, direcfled intirely 

 by pleafure : And though, as I have fhown, he is thus well 

 direded, (for God has created nothing ill), yet we are to con- 

 fider that pleafure is not the end of nature, but only the means fhe 

 ufes to attain her end, which is what is good. Now, it is by this that 

 man is direded, when he afls as a man fliould a^. And, in this re- 

 fped, he imitates God and nature, when he forms a plan of adion, of 

 which the end is good. And, when he extends this plan beyond 

 himfelf to thoufands of his own fpecies, forming diftate ot polity upon 

 fuch a plan, he may be faid to do the moft Godlike ad which mortal 

 man can do, and to create fomething like an tiniverfe. 



From this fhort view of the matter, it is evident, that there can be 

 no more dangerous error in the philoiophy of 7nind, than what has 

 been maintained by fome modern philofophers, * That we have no i- 

 * deas, but only perceptions of fenfe ;' or, in other words, that our 

 minds cannot a^ without the affiflarce of our bodies. In the frfl 

 place, it degrades us into brutes, leaving no other difference betwixt 



us 



