ropension of the Human Soul, which will
enable us to judge whether, and by what Method, this most useful
Principle may be unfettered, and restored to its native Freedom of
Exercise.

The first and leading Cause is an unhappy Complexion of Body. The
Heathens, ignorant of the true Source of Moral Evil, generally charged
it on the Obliquity of Matter, which, being eternal and independent, was
incapable of Change in any of its Properties, even by the Almighty Mind,
who, when He came to fashion it into a World of Beings, must take it as
he found it. This Notion, as most others of theirs, is a Composition of
Truth and Error. That Matter is eternal, that from the first Union of a
Soul to it, it perverted its Inclinations, and that the ill Influence it
hath upon the Mind is not to be corrected by God himself, are all very
great Errors, occasioned by a Truth as evident, that the Capacities and
Dispositions of the Soul depend, to a great Degree, on the bodily
Temper. As there are some Fools, others are Knaves, by Constitution; and
particularly, it may be said of many, that they are born with an
illiberal Cast of Mind; the Matter that composes them is tenacious as
Birdlime, and a kind of Cramp draws their Hands and their Hearts
together, that they never care to open them unless to grasp at more.
'Tis a melancholy Lot this; but attended with one Advantage above
theirs, to whom it would be as painful to forbear good Offices, as it is
to these Men to perform them; that whereas Persons naturally Beneficent
often mistake Instinct for Virtue, by reason of the Difficulty of
distinguishing when one rules them and when the other, Men of the
opposite Character may be more certain of the Motive that predominates
in every Action. If they cannot confer a Benefit with that Ease and
Frankness which are necessary to give it a Grace in the Eye of the
World, in requital, the real Merit of what they do is inhanc'd by the
Opposition they surmount in doing it. The Strength of their Virtue is
seen in rising against the Weight of Nature, and every time they have
the Resolution to discharge their Duty, they make a Sacrifice of
Inclination to Conscience, which is always too grateful to let its
Followers go without suitable Marks of its Approbation. Perhaps the
entire Cure of this ill Quality is no more possible, than of some
Distempers that descend by Inheritance. However, a great deal may be
done by a Course of Beneficence obstinately persisted in; this,