STUDY XII. 363 



never exceeds ; what is fufficient for him, always 

 appears to him beautiful and good. The inge- 

 nious bee conftructs commodious cells, but never 

 dreams of rearing triumphal arches, or obelifks, to 

 decorate her waxen city. A cottage was in like 

 manner fufficient for Man, in order to be as well 

 lodged as a bee. What need had he of five orders 

 of Architecture, of pyramids, of towers, of kiof- 

 ques ? 



What, then, is that verfatile faculty, called rea- 

 fon, which I employ in obferving Nature ? It is, 

 fay the Schools, a perception of correfpondencies, 

 which effentially diftinguifhes Man from thebeaft; 

 Man enjoys reafon, and the beaft is governed 

 merely by inftinct. But if this inftinct always 

 points out to the animal what is bed adapted to 

 it, it is, therefore, likewife a reafon, and a reafon 

 more precious than ours, in as much as it is inva- 

 riable, and is acquired without the aid of long and 

 painful experience. To this, the Philofophers of 

 the laft age replied, that the proof of the want of 

 reafon in beafts is this, that they act always in the 

 fame manner; thus they concluded, from the very 

 perfection of their reafon, that they had none. 

 Hence we may fee to what a degree great names, 

 falaries, and affociations, may give currency to the 

 greateft abfurdities; for the argument of thofe 



Philofophers 



