ABSTRACT
Order and Confusion are only relative terms, by which man designates the state in which particular beings find themselves. Order and confusion in individual beings, is nothing more than the manner of man's considering the natural and necessary effects, which they produce relatively to himself. He fears the wicked man; he says that he will carry confusion into society, because lie disturbs its tendency and places obstacles to its happiness. Man calls those beings intelligent, who are organized after his own manner; in whom he sees faculties proper for their preservation; suitable to maintain their existence in the order that is convenient to them; that can enable them to take the necessary measures towards this end, with a consciousness of the motion they undergo. From hence, it will be perceived, that the faculty called intelligence, consists in a possessing capacity to act comformably to a known end, in the being to which it is attributed.
