Chap. III. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 313 



by intelligence, will give us greater happinefs than they can give the 

 brute : And they may make even the evils of this life an advantage 

 to us ; for, as our life here is a life of trial and probation, it h 

 liable to many evils, fome natural, fuch as earthquakes, inundations, 

 eruptions of burning mountains, peftilential difeafes and famine, 

 and many more arifmg from the crimes, the vices, and the follies of 

 the men with whom we live. But even thefe will improve our 

 intelledt, if we bear them as we ought to do : And our own 

 vices and follies, if we fincerely repent of them, will improve our 

 underftanding, by convincing us that there can be no happinefs 

 without virtue and religion ; fo that even thefe lail mentioned evils, 

 the greateft that can befall us in this life, have a teuuency to improve 

 our minds, and to prepare us for enjoying happinefs in the life to 

 come. Even the arts which we have invented an:l pradtifed for 

 gratifying thofe vices and follies, are an exercile to the intellect: ; 

 which is of fome confcquence to an animal, who had loft the ufe of 

 that faculty, and can only acquire it, as I have fliown, by exorcifo 

 and pradlice. Upon the wliole, therefore, I think the civilized life, 

 with all the evils which accompany it, is the beft life that could 

 be devifed for enabling us to make fome progrcfs towards regaining 

 our former ftate. 



And thus much may fuffice in a work of this kind, with refped 

 to the two tirft claffes of brute animals 1 mentioned, the folitary and 

 the gregarious. I come now to treat of the laft clafs and the mod 

 wonderful of any, thofe I call political, as living in a polity go- 

 verned by certain laws. In them that grand principle of the brute 

 creation, which we call inftin<5l, and which, as I have faid, is 

 the governing principle in brutes, as intellect is in us, Ihows itfelf 

 moft wonderfully. The only animals of this kind that I fhall mention 

 are the Bees, the Ants, and the Swallows. The bees are not only a 

 moft wonderful animal, though fo conamon among us that they arc 

 Vol. VI. R r t* 



