society and civility. Cicero observed this when he reckoned up the advantages of men above beasts in these matters, in these words: "Eadem natura vi rationis, hominem conciliat homini, ad orationis et ad vitæ societatem. Nec vero illa parva vis, &c.—ante, p. 50; and it is principally for the service and furtherance of these great ends that it can, from known things, infer and explain those which are less known; that it can discern and judge what is agreeable and what is disagreeable to it; that it can form universal notions by abstraction from singulars; that it can by proper signs communicate its notions to others; can form inventions; can apprehend the nature of numbers, weights, and measures, and compare them with one another; that it can perceive the beauty and the force of order and method; that it can either raise or repress or moderate affections; that it can hold in memory an endless compass of things, and call out, as it were at its beck, any part of the stock which it has occasion to use; that it can turn its sight inward on itself; recollect its own dictates, and by them judge of its actions, whence arises the force and the authority of conscience. Of all these powers and abilities there would be very little use, or rather none at all, in a lawless, brutal, and unsociable life. Now the more gifts God has bestowed on man, and the greater

enlargements he has granted to his wit and mind, the more base and unseemly would it be that all these noble endowments should rust from want of culture and regulation; should be vainly spent and squandered away without use, without order, and without grace: nor was it altogether in vain that God indued man with a mind apprehensive of accuracy and decency; but it was, without doubt, intended that he should so employ the powers he had received as to manifest the glory of his Creator, and to promote his own true interest and happiness.

There are some things common to man not only with sensitive animals and vegetables, but also with inanimate matter; as, that his body is subject to the general law of gravitation; that its parts are capable of being separated, &c.

There are other things common to him with vegetables and sensitive animals; as, that he comes from a seed, grows, and is preserved by proper matter taken in and distributed through a set of vessels; ripens, flourishes, withers, decays, dies; is subject to diseases; may be hurt or killed; and therefore wants, as they do, nourishment, a proper habitation, protection from injuries, and the like.

He has other properties common only to him and the sentitive tribe; as, that he receives by his senses the notice of many external objects

and things; perceives many affections of his body; finds pleasure from some, and pain from others; and has certain powers of moving himself and acting, &c.

Beside these, he has other faculties which he doth not apprehend to be either in the inert mass of matter or in vegetables or even in the sentitive kind, at least in any considerable degree, by the help of which he investigates truth or probability, and judges whether things are agreeable to them or not; or, in a word, that he is animal rationale.

He is conscious of a liberty to act or not to act, &c.—Wooll. p. 314, and Sparsim.

Quis dubitet, hominem conjungere cœlo! Eximium natura dedit linguamque: capaxque Ingenium volucremque animum, quem denique in unum Descendit Deus atque habitat, seque ipse requirit.

Omne hominum genus in terris

Simili surgit ab ortu
Unus enim rerum pater est,

Unus cuncta ministrat
Ille dedit Phobo radios,

Dedit et cornua Lunæ.

Ille homines etiam terris

Dedit, et sidera cœlo
Hic dausit membris animos

Celsa sede petitos.

Mortales igitur cunctos

Edit nobile Germen.

Quid genus, et proavos strepitis?

Si primordia vestra,

Auctoremque Deum spectes

Nullus degener extat,

Ni vitiis pejora fovens

Proprium deserat ortum

Boetius, lib. iii. pr. 6.

Man, who, besides his excellent form and most accurate contexture of body, fitting him for the noblest and the quickest offices of life and motion, is endued with a singular light of understanding; by the help of which he is able most exactly to comprehend and to compare things, to gather the knowledge of obscurities from points already settled, and to judge of the agreements which matters bear to each other; and hath also the liberty of exerting, suspending, or moderating his actions, without being confined to any necessary course or method; and is farther invested with the privilege of inventing and applying new helps to each faculty for the more easy regulation of its proceedings.Puffend.

FOUNDATION AND DISTINCTION OF

GOOD AND EVIL.

If we cannot account for the existence of that evil which we find by experience to be in the world, it is but one instance out of many of our ignorance; as to moral good and evil they seem to depend upon ourselves. Evil, introduced by our neglect or abuse of our own liberty and powers, is not to be charged upon any other being. And, as to physical evil, without it much physical good would be lost; the one necessarily inferring the other. Thus, thirst makes the pleasure of drinking, and so on.-Wooll. Sparsim. 126.

Those dispositions of the mind are virtues by which a man is inclined to actions making for the preservation of himself and of human society; and those, on the contrary, are vices which addict us to actions destructive of ourselves and of the community to which we belong.-Puffend. book i. ch. 4.

The rule of human actions, or the true founda. tion of morality, is, properly, the will of the Supreme Being manifested and interpreted either by moral sense or by reason.