240 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book II. 



As to the Mind, we know, by daily experience, that, in the civi- 

 lized ftate, the qualities of it, as well as of the Body, defcend to the 

 race : And upon that fuppofition is founded the wifdoiu, as I have 

 obferved, of the Icgiflators of Egypt and India, who threw together 

 into the fame clafs men of the fame talents and mental endowments, 

 and obliged them to marry with one another. And, if there be a 

 difference of Minds among individuals in the natural ftate, as, I 

 think, I have proved, there is no reafon why it Ihould not go to the 

 race, as well as the fame difference in the civilized ftate. 



And here the analogical argument from other animals is moft 

 convincing ; for the difference of races and families among them is 

 univerfal ; fo that, if there were no difference among men in that 

 refpefl:, they would be an exception to a general law of Nature in 

 the animal creation. And I would have thofe, who fpeak of this 

 difference of races- among Men as a mere chimera, confider how the 

 difference among individuals, which they acknowledge, is to be 

 accounted for. If Men living in the fame climate and country, 

 eating the fame food, wearing the fame clothes, educated in the 

 fame way, and often following the fame vocation, are very differ- 

 ent ; — and, if that is not to be accounted for from the race of which 

 they are come, it muft either happen by chance, or by the particular 

 interpofition of Providence. As to chance, there is no fuch thing 

 in Nature, every thing being produced by fixed and determined 

 caufes, though thefe caufes are to us often unknown *. And, as to 

 a particular Providence, I think Horace's rule in poetry is good 

 likewife in philofophy, 



Nee Dens interftt;, nifi dignus inndlce nodus. 



It 



* Sec what I have faid upon this fubje£l, Vol. i. p. 284. 



