Now, if we survey the universe, so far as it falls under our
knowledge, it bears a great resemblance to an animal or organised
body, and seems actuated with a like principle of life and
motion. A continual circulation of matter in it produces no
disorder: a continual waste in every part is incessantly
repaired: the closest sympathy is perceived throughout the entire
system: and each part or member, in performing its proper
offices, operates both to its own preservation and to that of the
whole. The world, therefore, I infer, is an animal; and the Deity
is the SOUL of the world, actuating it, and actuated by it.
You have too much learning, C/LEANTHES\, to be at all
surprised at this opinion, which, you know, was maintained by
almost all the Theists of antiquity, and chiefly prevails in
their discourses and reasonings. For though, sometimes, the
ancient philosophers reason from final causes, as if they thought
the world the workmanship of God; yet it appears rather their
favourite notion to consider it as his body, whose organisation
renders it subservient to him. And it must be confessed, that, as
the universe resembles more a human body than it does the works
of human art and contrivance, if our limited analogy could ever,
with any propriety, be extended to the whole of nature, the
inference seems juster in favour of the ancient than the modern
theory.
There are many other advantages, too, in the former theory,
which recommended it to the ancient theologians.
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