Discourses upon the Existence and Attributes of God

But in Man, the change is perpetually visible; every day there is a change from Ignorance to Knowledge, from one Will to another, from Passion to Passion, sometimes sad and sometimes cheerful, sometimes craving this and presently nauseating it; his Body changes from health to sickness, or from weakness to strength; some alteration there is either in Body or Mind. Man who is the noblest Creature, the subordinate end of the Creation of other things, cannot assure himself of a consistency and fixedness in any thing the short space of a day, no not of a minute; all his Months are Months of vanity^*; whence the Psalmist calls Man at the best estate, altogether vanity, a mere heap of vanity:^* As he contains in his Nature the Nature of all Creatures, so he inherits in his Nature the Vanity of all Creatures: A little World, the Centre of the World and of the Vanity of the World; yea, lighter than Vanity^*; more moveable than a Feather; tossed between Passion and Passion, daily changing his end, and changing the means; An Image of nothing.

But in Man, the change is perpetually visible; every day there is a change from Ignorance to Knowledge, from one Will to another, from Passion to Passion, sometimes sad and sometimes cheerful, sometimes craving this and presently nauseating it; his Body changes from health to sickness, or from weakness to strength; some alteration there is either in Body or Mind. Man who is the noblest Creature, the subordinate end of the Creation of other things, cannot assure himself of a consistency and fixedness in any thing the short space of a day, no not of a minute; all his Months are Months of vanity^*; whence the Psalmist calls Man at the best estate, altogether vanity, a meer heap of vanity:^* As he contains in his Nature the Nature of all Creatures, so he inherits in his Nature the Vanity of all Creatures: A little World, the Center of the World and of the Vanity of the World; yea, lighter than Vanity^*