f4 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book I. 



a refolutlon, by which their natural inftind direds them to do one 

 thing rather than another ; and we fee them very often deliberating, 

 when their natural appetites draw them different ways. Thus I 

 have feen a dog deliberate mod anxioufly, and debate with himfelf, 

 when his love for his mafter prompted him to follow him through a 

 rapid river, while the fear of the water reftrained him. Ariftotle 

 adds next in the definition, what needs no explanation, that he is 

 mortal. 



Thus far Ariftotle has exalted our nature, fo as ro be ranked with 

 the better kinds of brutes ; but he has not yet told us what diftin- 

 guifhes man from them even in his natural ftate. But now he 

 gives us that diftindion, and very properly concludes his definition 

 with it: For he fays " That man is an animal, capable of intelle£t, 

 " (or to tranflate the Greek word literally), that may receive intelleft, 

 " and alfo of fcience." And here the reader will obferve, that I 

 tranflate the Greek word vom, not by the Englifh word reafon^ as is 

 commonly done, but by the word intelle^i^ by which I mean to 

 denote that faculty of the mind which forms ideas, and fees 

 the one in the many ; whereas Reafon, according to the Englifh fenfe 

 of the word, denotes that faculty by which we compare our ideas, 

 and form the laft thing mentioned by Ariftotle in this definition, 

 viz. Science, which is formed by the difcurfive faculty of the hu- 

 man mind, in Greek (fiuroia.. 



The full definition, therefore, of Man, according to Ariftotle, is, 

 " That he is a Comparative Animal, (that is, an animal, who has the 

 " faculty of Comparing), who has alfo the capacity of acquiring In- 

 " telled and Science, and who is Mortal." 



And here we may obferve how properly Ariftotle has fet at the 

 head of his definition of Man this Comparative faculty, as from it 



every 



