Chap. I. A N T I K N T M E T A P H Y S I C S. 25 



wild Boy. — All Nations^ fome time or other ^ in the natural State^ — 

 The Age of a Nation to be counted from that State. 



IN the preceding -Book, I have fliown that Man is a compound 

 of feveral fuhflances. The nature of thefe I have endeavoured to 

 explain, and to fhow that, though they differ efTentially from one a- 

 nother, they all agree moft wonderfully in forming the Syftem of 

 Man. I proceed, in this Book, to confider more particularly one 

 part of the compofition — the Animal Nature ; a moft material part, 

 as I have bbferved, being more intimately connected with our He- 

 gemonic, or Governing Principle, than any other part of us is. 



And I will begin the inquiry with that State of Man's Animal 

 Nature when he was only an Animal ; for all the parts of his com- 

 pofition did not exift at once, but there was a progrefs in his forma- 

 tion, as well as in other things in Nature. While in the womb he 

 is no better than a Vegetable, coming probably, like other Vege- 

 tables, from eggs. By degrees he becomes an Animal, but is an im- 

 perfed Animal even when born. After the Animal Nature is per- 

 fected in him, comes the Intelledual part, by flow deo^rees even a- 

 mong us, but by degrees infinitely flower vx^hen he could not 

 be formed, as we arc, by example and inftrudlion. But even here 

 there is not an end of his changes : For, after he is become both an 

 Intelledual and Political Animal, and has invented arts and fciences 

 he is far from continuing the fame ; and a man in the firft a^es of 

 fociety is exceedingly different from a man in the later and declinino- 

 ftate of it. In fliort, Man appears to me to undergo as many chan- 

 ges as any Animal we know, even as many, and as different from 

 one another, at leaft with refped to the Mind, as caterpillars and 

 Vol. III. D but- 



