that equality or superiority: and consequently, that to
do mischief is not the end of envy, but merely the means it makes use of
to attain its end. As to resentment, see the Eighth Sermon.

{6} Ephes. ii. 3.

{7} Every man in his physical nature is one individual single agent. He
has likewise properties and principles, each of which may be considered
separately, and without regard to the respects which they have to each
other. Neither of these is the nature we are taking a view of. But it
is the inward frame of man considered as a _system_ or _constitution_:
whose several parts are united, not by a physical principle of
individuation, but by the respects they have to each other; the chief of
which is the subjection which the appetites, passions, and particular
affections have to the one supreme principle of reflection or conscience.
The system or constitution is formed by and consists in these respects
and this subjection. Thus the body is a _system_ or _constitution_: so
is a tree: so is every machine. Consider all the several parts of a tree
without the natural reselects they have to each other, and you have not
at all the idea of a tree; but add these respects, and this gives you the
idea. This body may be impaired by sickness, a tree may decay, a machine
be out of order, and yet the system and constitution of them not totally
dissolved. There is plainly somewhat which answers to all this in the
moral constitution of man. Whoever will consider his own nature will see
that the several appetites, passions, and particular affections have
different respects amongst themselves. They are restraints upon, and are
in a proportion to, each other. This proportion is just and perfect,
when all those under principles are perfectly coincident with conscience,
so far as their nature permits, and in all cases under its absolute and
entire direction. The least excess or defect, the least alteration of
the due proportions amongst themselves, or of their coincidence with
conscience, though not proceeding into action, is some degree of disorder
in the moral constitution. But perfection, though plainly intelligible
and unsupportable, was never attained by any man. If the higher
principle of reflection maintains its place, and as much as it can
corrects that disorder, and hinders it from breaking out into action,
this is all that can be expected in such a creature as man. And though
the appetites and passions have not th