ESSAY IX. 449 when it is hurt? These are certainly the effects of instinct in their outward members, as much as the circulation of their blood and digestion of their food in their bowels and inward parts. It is certain there are several operations in the lives of brute creatureswhich seem to be more perfect imitations of reason, and bid fairer for the real effect of a reasoning principle within them than these early actions which I have mentioned. What strange subtlety and contrivance seem to be found in the actions of dogs and foxes? What artifices appear to be used both by birds and beasts of prey, in order to seize the animals which were appointed for their food, as well as in the weaker creatures to avoid and escape the devourer ? How few are there of the passions as well as the appetites of human nature, which are not found among several of the brute creatures ? What resentment and rage do they discover ? What jealousy and fear, what hope and desire, what wondrous instances of love and joy, of grati- tude and revenge? What amazing appearances of this nature are observed in birds and beasts of the more docile and domestic kind, that they utterly puzzle and pose the wisest of philosophers togive a plain, fair and satisfactory account how all these things can be performed by mechanism, or the mere laws of matter and motion ? I confess it is impossible for us to determine with any certainty how far the powers of mechanism can go, when under the direction of infinite wisdom in the original formation of these engines ; and how farcertain general laws ofanimalmotion may be at first appointed by God theCreator which mayreach to perform all the visible appearance in the brutal creation for six thousand years together. But if this be machinery contrived by an all- pervading mind, it is certain that it is not be explained by all the present sciences and reasonings of then. I confess also on the other hand I am not very fond of al- lowing to brutes such an immaterial soul, such a thinking and reasoning power, which in its own nature must carry immortality with it. Every emmet upon a mole-hill, and every bee in a swarm, lays as just a claim to such a spirit as an ox or an elephant. The amazing instances of appearing sagacity and reasoning, design and choice, which discover themselves in these little creatures make as good pretence to such a sublime principle of consciousness, judgment and liberty. And why may not the millions of mites in a cheese, and the nations of other animal- cules which swarm invisible to the naked eye, be entitled to the same reasoning powersor spirits, since their motions, so far as glasses discover them, are as happily suited to the ends of animal life ? It is difficult to bring one's self to believe that an imma- terial spiritis prepared for each of these minute creatures so soon as their body is formed, and that at the death of the body it ceases to exist, or that it passes by divine appointment from one animal to another, by certain unknown laws of transmigration. Vol.. vtn. F f
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy OTcyMjk=