Chap. VII. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 55 



to which it belongs. In this way they fpeak of the different fpe- 

 ciefes of animals with which they arc converfant ; fo that they have 

 a name for a man, a horfe^ or an afs: But very few of them, if any, 

 have a name for the genus of thefe fpcciefes, I mean animal; nor 

 do they appear to be fo far advanced in the knowledge of things 

 as to have any idea fo general as that of genus. And, indeed, 

 this afcent, from the perception of individual things to the fpe- 

 cies to which they belong, from the fpecies to the genus, and 

 firom a lower genus to a higher, fhows that wonderful progrefs 

 in knowledge and that improvement of our intellect for which 

 we are placed in this world. Thus, from the perception that we 

 have by our fenfes, of any particular animal, [inan for example), we 

 rife to the idea of the fpecies to which he belongs; then from the 

 fpecies we proceed to the genus of that fpecies, which is animal. 

 And in doing this we obferve what the logicians call the fpecific 

 difference; that is, what diflinguiflies the fpecies from the genus, 

 and one fpecies of that genus from anotlier. This, in man, is intel- 

 ligence. We may obferve likewife other things which are proper 

 and peculiar to man, and alfo things that are accidental or common 

 to him with other fpeciefes of animals; and in this way we go 

 through Porphyry's _/"•!;£• words ^ Genus, Species, Specific Difference, 

 Proper or Peculiar, and Accidental *. But the progrefs of things, 

 and of our knowledge, does not flop here ; for we afcend from the 

 genus animal to a higher genus, that is animated body, or the to 

 ^Bfc-^v)^ov, as the Greeks called it, comprehending both the animal 

 and the vegetable : Then from animated body we proceed to body ; 

 and from body to fiibjlance, which is one of the Categories, that is 

 one of the higheft genufes f, beyond which there is nothing but the 

 Supreme Being, from whom all things proceed, and who, therefore, 

 comprehends them all. So that here we have a progrefs from an 



individual 



* See on this fubje(ft, p. 32. 



t See what I have further faid upon this fubje*^, p. 46. 



