LETTERS TO BROTHER JOHN. 3 



dent of all physical laws : we are here wholly and 

 solely concerned simply with the physical animal. 



The method I shall adopt, in order to exhihit 

 some of the principal systems of which the whole 

 scheme of man is made up, and to shew the relation 

 which exists between them, and the dependence of 

 one upon another, may he considered as fanciful. 

 Perhaps it is so. But it struck me as one well 

 calculated to render what I wish to say, easily com- 

 prehensible ; and that circumstance alone is a good 

 recommendation : for I am not ambitious of fine 

 writing-, either as it regards accurate arrangement, 

 philosophical speculation, or learned and elegant 

 diction: I am only anxious to be understood. 



If man had been the work of any being less than 

 Omniscient, the several single ideas composing the 

 one complex idea of man must have occurred in 

 succession ; and the first must have been the idea 

 of his figure. The first idea could only have been, 

 as I shall prove presently, merely that of an image 

 or statue of the particular form and appearance 

 which man presents. I am, of course, for the pre- 

 sent, supposing man to have been the first animal 

 produced, and that his artificer was some Being of 

 inferior wisdom to that of Him who is, in truth. 



Ins real Author. 



B 2 



