23? ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book IV. 



with refpect both to houfes, clothes, and diet, and continuing to 

 live (o for many generations, each generation adding to the vices, 

 difeafes, and weakneflVs, produced by the unnatural life of the pre- 

 ceding, is that they muft gradually decline in ftrength, health, and 

 longevity, till at laft the race dies out. To deny this, would be to 

 deny that the life allotted by God and nature to man, is the beft 

 life for the prcfervation of his health and ftrength ; for, if it be fo, 

 I think it is demonftration, that the conftant deviation from it, go- 

 ing on for very many generations, muft end in tlie extindion of 

 the race. To fay ctherwifc, 1 think, vvoukl be to maintain, that 

 man, in defiance of the ordinance of Gud, could contiime his race 

 for ever. Befides, I think, it would be inconfiftant with the wif- 

 dom and goodnefs of God, to fuppofe that he had formed a fpecies 

 of animals that were to continue for ever the moft miferable, audy 

 at the fame time, more imperfed: of their kind than any other ani- 

 mal on this earth.. 



Further, as it appears that the end, propfed for our being in the 

 ftate of civil fociety, was to give us an opportunity of becoming an 

 intelligent animal, not only in capacity, but in aduality; and as 

 this defign is anfwered by our having been fo long in that ftate, it 

 w^as fit that we ihould go to another ftate where we might be lefs 

 miferable, and, at the fame time, make greater progrefs in our re- 

 covery from our fallen ftate. 



That fuch a flow and lingering death, as that of our fpecies dying 

 out, muft be accompanied with much pain and mifery, 1 think, is evi- 

 dent; and, therefore, I hold it to be an effed of the Divine Mercy and 

 Goodnefs, that, as we are told in our facred books, the miferable re- 

 mains of the fpecies ftiall be deftroyed by fome convulfion of nature, 

 which is to produce a new Heaven and another Earth, to be inha- 

 bited by a new race of men, more righteous and pious than the for- 

 mer. 



