Chap. XVIII. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 259 



I have treated at great length, not only in this volume, but in other 

 volumes of this work. The more I confider man, the more I am 

 convinced that he is not only the chief animal on this earth, hut the 

 moft various and mofl: wonderful animal here below ; being fo va- 

 rious in his compofition, that he is an epitome of the whole uni- 

 verfe, confifting of all the feveral kinds of minds in the univerfe, 

 one of which is the governing mind, and of a body wonderfully 

 fuited to the operations of thefe feveral minds ; and all thefe 

 minds fo joined together and fo conneded with the body, as to 

 make but one fyftcm, fo admirable, that man, being himfelf a little 

 world, is a fufficient proof that the great world or univerfe is like- 

 wife one fyftem, formed by one being of fupremc intelligence, and 

 alfo, as I think I have proved, of infinite goodnefs ; which, as I 

 fliall fliow in the next book, is to be feen, not only with refpedl to 

 man, but with refpccl to the other animals of this earth. 



I would have thofe, who are curious about animals and de>- 

 light in hearing of ftrange animals, confider whether or not man 

 is not the moft wonderful animal on this earth, and fuch that no 

 other animal, like to him, is to be found here below. And as the 

 ftudy of man fliould gratify their curiofity more than the ftudy of 

 any other animal, fo it fhould improve their underftanding more : 

 For in man, as I have fhown elfewhere*, are to be found the mate- 

 rials of the moft valuable knowledge and of the higheft philofophy, 

 I mean theology. 



When we add to the variety of his compofition by nature his 

 wonderful progrefs from the ftate of a brute animal of the better 

 kind, that is a logical animal, as Ariftotle has defined him in the 

 natural ftate f, to a ftate of civil fociety, in which he is transformed 



K k 2 tc 



* Pp. 222 and 223 of this Vol. 



t P. 144 of this Vol. and Chap. I. Vol. IV. 



