341. M. Regis, a famous Cartesian, had asserted in his 'Metaphysics' (part 2, book 2, c. 29) that the faculties God has given to men are the most excellent that they were capable of in conformity with the general order of nature. 'Considering only', he says, 'the power of God and the nature of man by themselves, it is very easy to conceive that God could have made man more perfect: but if one will consider man, not in himself and separately from all other creatures, but as a member of the universe and a portion which is subject to the general laws of motions, one will be bound to acknowledge that man is as perfect as he could have been.' He adds 'that we cannot conceive that God could have employed any other means more appropriate than pain for the conservation of our bodies'. M. Regis is right in a general way in saying that God cannot do better than he has done in relation to all. And although there be apparently in some places in the universe rational animals more perfect than man, one may say that God was right to create every kind of species, some more perfect than others. It is perhaps not impossible that there be somewhere a species of animals much resembling man and more perfect than we are. It may be even that the human race will attain in time to a greater perfection than that which we can now envisage. Thus the laws of motions do not prevent man from being more perfect: but the place God has assigned to man in space and in time limits the perfections he was able to receive.