Page:A discourse upon the origin and foundation of the inequality among mankind (IA discourseuponori00rous).pdf/103

But tho' the Difficulties, in which all theſe Queſtions are involved, ſhould leave ſome Room to diſpute on this Difference between Man and Beaſt, there is another very ſpecifick Quality that diſtinguiſhes them, and a Quality which will admit of no Diſpute; this is the Faculty of Improvement; a Faculty which, as Circumſtances offer, ſucceſſively unfolds all the other Faculties, and reſides among us not only in the Species, but in the Individuals that compoſe it; whereas a Beaſt is, at the end of ſome Months, all he ever will be during the reſt of his Life; and his Species, at the End of a thouſand Years, preciſely what it was the first Year of that long Period. Why is Man alone ſubject to Dotage? Is it not, becauſe he thus returns to his primitive Condition? And becauſe, while the Beaſt, which has acquired nothing and has likewiſe nothing to loſe, continues always in Poſſeſſion of his