Chap. III. ANTIENT METAPHYSI C S. 103 



wife as good a Man, both in Mind and Body, as any that ever have 

 Jived in the focial ftate, he muft, I think, be as happy a Man as his 

 own opinion of himfelf can make him. But, when he pays fuch a 

 compliment to himfelf, I think he pays but a very indifferent one to 

 his fpecies. And, what is worfe, it is impious, in my opinion, to main- 

 tain, that a creature, fo weak of body, fo difeafed, and fo fhort li- 

 ved, fo difordered likewife in Mind, notwithftanding all our boafted 

 improvements in Arts and Sciences, in fhort, an Animal fo miferable 

 as by far the greater part of Men in the civilized nations of Europe 

 are, fhouldhave come, in that ftate, diredly and immediately out of 

 the hands of a Creator infinitely good as well as wife. For it would be 

 fuppofing that God had made the chief animal here below much 

 more miferable than any of the inferior, even fuch of them as w'e 

 have taken under our care, and applied to our ufes, though they be 

 more miferable than thofe in the natural ftate ; whereas my philofo- 

 phy is, that Man, as he came out of the hands of his Creator, was 

 the moft perfect of all the animals here on earth, and confequently the 

 happieft, as happy as the mere Animal could be : But he was defti- 

 ned for a higher fphere and greater happinefs. For this purpofe, 

 it was neceffary that his nobler or intelledual part fhould be fepara- 

 ted from his animal, with which, in this ftate of our nature, it is 

 loaded and incumbered. This feparation, or death, as it is called, 

 cannot be, by the nature of things, without great pain to fubftan- 

 ces fo clofely united. The diflblution goes on quicker, or flower, 

 from the moment the intelledual part begins to exert iifelf ; for then 

 it begins to prey upon the animal part in feveral ways, but chiefly by 

 the invention of thofe arts which, I have fhown, are fo deftrudlive 

 to the Body. In the Individual, the diflblution is much fooner accom- 

 plifhed ; but, in the Species, it continues very much longer, and goes 

 on, like other things in Nature, by flow and infenfible degrees, till at 

 laft the animal Man dies out, and his intelledual part, being thus 

 feparated from his animal, appears again in fome other form, more or 

 lefs perfed, according to the progrefs it made in this Hfe in its fc- 



naration 



