full blown, and incapable of further enlargements, I
could imagine it might fall away insensibly; and drop at once into a
state of annihilation.

6. But can we believe a thinking being; that is in a perpetual progress
of improvements, and travelling on from perfection to perfection, after
having just looked abroad into the works of its Creator, and made a few
discoveries of his infinite goodness, wisdom and power, must perish at
her first setting out, and in the very beginning of her enquiries?

A man considered in his present state, seems only sent into the world to
propagate his kind. He provides himself with a successor, and
immediately quits his post to make room for him.

----_Haeres.
Haeredem alterius velut unda supervenit undam._

HOR. Ep. 2. 1. 2. v. 175

----Heir crowds heir, as in a rolling flood
Wave urges wave.
CREECH.

7. He does net seem born to enjoy life, but to deliver it down to
others. This is not surprising to consider in animals, which are formed
for our use, and can finish their business in a short life. The
silk-worm, after having spun her task, lays her eggs and dies. But a man
can never have taken in his full measure of knowledge, has not time to
subdue his passions, establish his soul in virtue, and come up to the
perfection of his nature, before he is hurried off the stage.

8. Would an infinitely wise Being make such glorious creatures for so
mean a purpose? Can he delight in the production of such abortive
intelligences, such short-lived reasonable beings? Would he give us
talents that are not to be exerted? capacities that are never to be
gratified? How can we find that wisdom which shines through all his
works, in the formation of man, without looking on this world as only a
nursery for the next, and believing that the several generations of
rational creatures, which rise up and disappear in such quick
successions, are only to receive the first rudiments of existence here,
and afterwards to be transplanted into a more friendly climate, where
they may spread and flourish to all eternity.

9. There is not, in my opinion, a more pleasing and triumphant
consideration in religion than this of the perpetual progress which the
soul makes towards the perfection of its nature, without ever arriving
at a period in it. To look upon the soul as going on from strength to
strength, to consider that s