26 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book II. 



butterflies ; and, if we believe in a future flate, we muft fuppofe that 

 tlie changes will not ceafe with this life *. 



I begin, then, this Philofophy of Man, by confidering him in his 

 natural ftate, which muft be the foundation of any acquired or ad- 

 ventitious ftate he may afterwards appear in. And here it is proper 

 to explain what I mean by a ftate of nature ; for it is a term that 

 may be ufed in two fenfes, very different. It may denote either his 

 moft perfed ftate, to which his nature tends, and towards which he 

 either is or ought to be always advancing, I mean the perfedion of 

 his Intelledual Faculties, by which, and which only, he is truly a 

 Man : And this is the moft proper meaning of the natural ftate of 

 Man ; for the natural ftate of every thing is that ftate to which, by 



nature. 



* This progrefs of Man is very clearly laid down in an excellent work of Philo- 

 ponus, the Chiiflian commentator upon Ariflotle, his commentary upon Ariftotle's 

 treatife De Jnimat lib. 2. in the beginning ; where he makes Man, when firft con- 

 ceived, to be a^'y^o"' O"" inajiimate ; then he becomes an cff^ux,ov, but only of the vege- 

 table kind, that is to fay, organized, and having growth and nutrition, but without 

 fenfe or fpontaneous motion; then he becomes a Zoophyte, having the fenfe of Touch, 

 and a certain movement, but without change of place, flicking to the womb like an 

 oyRer to its fliell or rock ; then, after delivery, he becomes a ^uov, or animal, ha- 

 ving motion from place to place, and energizing by all the fenfes. He is yet,, 

 however, but an irrational animal, or '(uov aXoyo ; and it is only in procefs of time, 

 according to Phiioponus, that he becomes t^atv Aay<xov. He is not, fays our author, 

 even at his birth, an animal of a perfed kind j for he wants the Phantafia, or Ima-- 

 gination, and therefore refembles a worm, or fuch other imperfc£l animal. That 

 very young children want imagination Phiioponus proves in this way : A young 

 child, fays he, will fuck any thing that refembles a nipple, and he will come to the 

 fire and burn himfelf, and this not once, but fcveral times. Now this proceeds fromi 

 his not having thofe objc£ls pidlured in his imagination at firft, as they are after- 

 ward*, when he knov/s the fire, and fhuns it, and does not miflake a finger, or any 

 thing clfe, for his mother's nipple. See Philoponus's commentary on that part of 

 Ariflotle's third book, De Jnima, where he treats of the Phantafia. 



