seem reasonable to transfer this experience to the universe; and to
suppose the divine mind and body to be also coeval, and to have, both of
them, order and arrangement naturally inherent in them, and inseparable
from them.

Here, therefore, is a new species of Anthropomorphism, CLEANTHES, on
which you may deliberate; and a theory which seems not liable to any
considerable difficulties. You are too much superior, surely, to
systematical prejudices, to find any more difficulty in supposing an
animal body to be, originally, of itself, or from unknown causes,
possessed of order and organisation, than in supposing a similar order to
belong to mind. But the vulgar prejudice, that body and mind ought always
to accompany each other, ought not, one should think, to be entirely
neglected; since it is founded on vulgar experience, the only guide which
you profess to follow in all these theological inquiries. And if you
assert, that our limited experience is an unequal standard, by which to
judge of the unlimited extent of nature; you entirely abandon your own
hypothesis, and must thenceforward adopt our Mysticism, as you call it,
and admit of the absolute incomprehensibility of the Divine Nature.

This theory, I own, replied CLEANTHES, has never before occurred to me,
though a pretty natural one; and I cannot readily, upon so short an
examination and reflection, deliver any opinion with regard to it. You
are very scrupulous, indeed, said PHILO: were I to examine any system of
yours, I should not have acted with half that caution and reserve, in
starting objections and difficulties to it. However, if any thing occur
to you, you will oblige us by proposing it.

Why then, replied CLEANTHES, it seems to me, that, though the world does,
in many circumstances, resemble an animal body; yet is the analogy also