crush it under their feet.  If it were as tall as a high steeple, a small number of men would in a few days consume all the aliments a whole country affords.  They could find neither horses nor any other beasts of burden either to carry them on their backs or draw them in a machine with wheels; nor could they find sufficient quantity of materials to build houses proportioned to their bigness; and as there could be but a small number of men upon earth, so they should want most conveniences.  Now, who is it that has so well regulated the size of man to so just a standard?  Who is it that has fixed that of other animals and living creatures, with proportion to that of man?  Of all animals, man only stands upright on his feet, which gives him a nobleness and majesty that distinguishes him, even as to the outside, from all that lives upon earth.  Not only his figure is the noblest, but he is also the strongest and most dextrous of all animals, in proportion to his bigness.  Let one nicely examine the bulk and weight of the most terrible beasts, and he will find, that though they have more matter than the body of a man, yet a vigorous man has more strength of body than most wild beasts.  Nor are these dreadful to him, except in their teeth and claws.  But man, who has not such natural arms in his limbs, has yet hands, whose dexterity to make artificial weapons surpasses all that nature has bestowed upon beasts.  Thus man either pierces with his darts or draws into his snares, masters, and leads in chains the strongest and fiercest animals.  Nay, he has the skill to tame them in their captivity, and to sport with them as he pleases.  He teaches lions and tigers to caress him:  and gets on the back of elephants.

Sect.  XLIII.  Of the Soul, which alone, among all Creatures, Thinks and Knows.

But the body of man, which appears to be the masterpiece of nature, is not to be compared to his thought.  It is certain that there are bodies that do not think:  man, for instance, ascribes no knowledge to stone, wood, or metals, which undoubtedly are bodies.  Nay, it is so natural to believe that matter cannot think, that all unprejudiced men cannot forbear laughing when they hear any one assert that beasts are but mere machines; because they cannot conceive that mere machines can have such knowledge as they pretend to perceive in beasts.  They think it to be like children’s playing, and talking to their puppets, the ascribing any knowledge to mere machines.  Hence it is that the ancients themselves, who knew no real substance but the body, pretended, however, that the soul of a man was a fifth element, or a sort of quintessence without name, unknown here below, indivisible, immutable, and altogether celestial and divine, because they could not conceive that the terrestrial matter of the four elements could think, and know itself:  Aristoteles quintam quandam naturam censet esse, e qua sit mens.  Cogitare enim, et providere, et discere, et docere. . . . in horum quatuor generum nullo inesse putat; quintum genus adhibet vacans nomine.