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

 But tho' the Difficulties, in which all thee Quetions are involved, hould leave ome Room to dipute on this Difference between Man and Beat, there is another very pecifick Quality that ditinguihes them, and a Quality which will admit of no Dipute; this is the Faculty of Improvement; a Faculty which, as Circumtances offer, ucceively unfolds all the other Faculties, and reides among us not only in the Species, but in the Individuals that compoe it; whereas a Beat is, at the end of ome Months, all he ever will be during the ret of his Life; and his Species, at the End of a thouand Years, preciely what it was the first Year of that long Period. Why is Man alone ubject to Dotage? Is it not, becaue he thus returns to his primitive Condition? And becaue, while the Beat, which has acquired nothing and has likewie nothing to loe, continues always in Poeion of his