1 66 KANT'S UNIVERSAL NATURAL HISTORY. 



thusiastic notion of the Englishman regarding the various 

 stages of the spiritual word, as arranged according to the 

 physical relation of their dwelling-places to the centre of 

 the creation, I am inclined to seek the most perfect 

 classes of rational beings with more probability far away 

 from this centre rather than close to it. The perfection 

 of creatures endowed with reason, in so far as it depends 

 on the quality of the matter in whose bonds they are 

 confined, turns very much on the fineness of the matter 

 which influences and determines them to their perception 

 of the world and their reaction upon it. The inertia and 

 resistance of matter limits very much the freedom of the 

 spiritual being for action and the distinctness of its sense 

 of external things; this makes its faculties dull and obtuse, 

 so that it does not respond to their outward movements 

 with sufficient facility. Hence, if it is supposed, as is 

 probable, that the densest and heaviest sorts of matter 

 are near the centre of nature, and, on the contrary, that 

 the increasing degrees in its fineness and lightness 

 according to the analogy which rules in our system are 

 respectively at a greater distance; the result in con- 

 sequence is intelligible. The rational beings, whose place 

 of generation and abode is found nearer the centre of 

 the creation, are plunged in a rigid and immobile kind of 

 matter which holds their powers shut up in insuperable 

 inertness, and which of itself is just as incapable of trans- 

 ferring and communicating the impressions of the universe 

 with the necessary distinctness and facility. These 

 thinking beings will therefore have to be reckoned as 

 belonging to the lower class. And, on the other hand, 

 with the various distances from the universal centre, this 

 perfection of the world of spirits, which rests on their 



