332 APPENDIX. 



taimng virtually and aBually ; — a diftmdtion, which I have elfewhere 

 explained- at fome length *. 



But befulcs this clofe union of things, which the divifion into 

 genufes, fpeciefes, and individuals, fhows, we difcover a connec- 

 tion of things, whereby one thing is derived from another, without 

 which it could not exift ; a connedlion which naturally leads us up to 

 the knowledge of the firfl: caufe, without which nothing could exift. 

 Thus, for example, we know that the genus animal^ that is, 

 Being Jbifilivc, leads us to inquire what fuch a being is ; and we 

 difcover that it is a mind, which perceives things that give it plea- 

 fure or pain. And this leads us to inquire what mind is ? And we 

 fmd it is that which animates body ; fo that the genus animal is a 

 fpecics of animated body : And if we carry our inquiry farther, we 

 difcover that there are fuperior minds, which are unimbodied, and 

 confequcntly more excellent, as having nothing of the contagion of 

 matter. And thus we rife to the Supreme Mind, from which all 

 (jther minds are derived, not only minds intelligent, but minds that 

 only move matter, and give to body all its qualities and all its ope- 

 rations. 



Thus it appears that the genus is that without which none of the 

 fpeciefes of that genus, nor of the individuals under thofe fpeciefes, 

 could exift, and which therefore may be faid to be the caufe produ- 

 cing all thofe fpeciefes and individuals ; and by the ftudy of this 

 caufe we are led up to the difcovery of the firft caufe of all things. 



But before we come to that caufe, there is another ftep to be 

 made, and that a very great one. The ftep I mean is from the lower 

 genufes to the higher and to the higheft of all ; for the genufes rife 

 above one another, fo that the lower genus is a fpecics of the higher; 



and 



-• P. 62 of this Vol. 



