defective in many circumstances the most material: no organs of sense; no
seat of thought or reason; no one precise origin of motion and action. In
short, it seems to bear a stronger resemblance to a vegetable than to an
animal, and your inference would be so far inconclusive in favour of the
soul of the world.

But, in the next place, your theory seems to imply the eternity of the
world; and that is a principle, which, I think, can be refuted by the
strongest reasons and probabilities. I shall suggest an argument to this
purpose, which, I believe, has not been insisted on by any writer. Those,
who reason from the late origin of arts and sciences, though their
inference wants not force, may perhaps be refuted by considerations
derived from the nature of human society, which is in continual
revolution, between ignorance and knowledge, liberty and slavery, riches
and poverty; so that it is impossible for us, from our limited
experience, to foretell with assurance what events may or may not be
expected. Ancient learning and history seem to have been in great danger
of entirely perishing after the inundation of the barbarous nations; and
had these convulsions continued a little longer, or been a little more
violent, we should not probably have now known what passed in the world a
few centuries before us. Nay, were it not for the superstition of the
Popes, who preserved a little jargon of Latin, in order to support the
appearance of an ancient and universal church, that tongue must have been
utterly lost; in which case, the Western world, being totally barbarous,
would not have been in a fit disposition for receiving the GREEK language
and learning, which was conveyed to them after the sacking of
CONSTANTINOPLE. When learning and books had been extinguished, even the
mechanical arts would have fallen considerably to decay; and it is easily
imagined, that fable or tradition might ascribe to them a much later
origin than the true one. This vulgar argument, therefore, against the