214 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. BookIL 



by which, more than by any thing elfe, we are diftinguifhed from the 

 brute, and our mind removed at the greateft diftance from every thing 

 material ; for it is by conjcioufncfs that a being is attentive to itfelf, is 

 prefent, as it were, with itfelf, perceives itfelf, and has enjoyment of 

 itfelf. In fliort, it is that faculty,, by which we come the neareft to 

 our idea of Divinity '*. If there were no diftindion betwixt it and 

 perception, then would the brutes be confcious as well as we. Now, I 

 hold it to be certain that they are not ; and, therefore, I have fet down 

 nvant of confcioiifnefs as common to all the natural moving principles 

 above mentioned. 



Thefe natural motive povuers, not only have not this prime fa- 

 culty of intcUeSi, but they have not intelkEl at all ; for they do not 

 contemplate the nature of things, apprehend generals, or form ideas. 

 They adt, therefore, without intelligence or defign, not having any 

 idea of the end for which they a6l; : For this reafon, they are to be 

 confidered ' As manual opifcers, that a£t fubferviently under the ar- 

 ' chite^onical art and wifdom of the Divine Underftanding,* as Cud- 

 worth has very well exprefTed it f. Though, therefore, they work re- 

 gularly, orderly, artificially, and to a certain end, yet they do not in- 

 tend that end, or underfland the reafon of what they do. And, if it 



were 



* Sec, on this fubje£l:, Cudworth's Intellectual Syflem, p. 159. 



t Intelle£lual Syftem, p. 156. — The thought is not: his, but he has taken it from 

 Ariflotle, in the beginning of his Metaphyhcs, whom he has quoted. He has alfo 

 quoted a palTage from Plotinus, which (hows, 1 think, as much as any, the depth of 

 the underftanding of that philofopher. He fays, that nature is the laft of mindf being 

 no more than an obfcure image or imitation of Divine Wifdom ; as when, fays he, 

 wc make a deep impreifion with a feal upon a thick piece of wax, the (lamp or figna- 

 ture, on that fide which we imprcfs, will be ftrong and clear, but, on the other fide». 

 ■weak and faint. And from thence, he adds, it comes, that nature does not know, but 

 only afts, Itv ovh a^i (pve-ii,^t»»» 61 xoiE(. This, I think, is a moll apt fimilitude, illuftra- 

 ting my notion of the progrefs of mind downward from the highell Mind, to that 

 which a<^s in natural things, without intelligence, or knowledge of what it does. 



