LETTER X. 



" Know then thyself, presume not God to scan.. 

 The proper study of mankind is man ; 

 Placeii in this isthmus of a middle stale, 

 Not bci-t'K mean, not yel superbly great." 



TO-PE, 

 DEAR SIR, 



.1 N a survey of animated existence, it is requisite to 

 begin by a view of our own species, and in the first 

 piu.cc, to contemplate Man, the lord of this terra"- 

 (jueous globe, which the All-wise Creator has assigned 

 him for his abode ; having endowed him with powers 

 and faculties, by which he is enabled to render the 

 rest of its inhabitants subservient to his interests. ' 



Man is a wonderful creature, and being a corn- 

 pound of body and mind, has frequently been con- 

 sidered as that link, in the great chain of beings, 

 which connects the material and the intellectual 

 world ; as he partakes of the nature of both, and unites 

 in himself the properties of animal and -rational exis- 

 tence. His mental powers directing the exercise of 

 his corporeal faculties, enable him to render inani- 

 mate Nature subservient to his use ; and possessing 

 this superiority of understanding over all other crea- 

 tures, he converts the mildest and most docile animals 

 into useful domestics, and regards the most ferocious 

 as impotent enemies. 



All our ideas of external things are conveyed to 

 the mind by the medium of the senses. Without the 

 sense of seeing we could have no ideas of forms or 

 colours, and without that of hearing we could have no 

 conception of sounds ; and the same observation may- 

 be made of all our other perceptions. From these 

 simple sensations all our ideas, however compounded, 

 extended, and ramified, originally proceed. Such is 

 the natural operation of an intellectual, united to a 

 corporeal being. 



In regard to the bodily powers of man, he surpasses, 

 i* proportion to his weight, most animals in strength 



