Chap. VI. ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. loi 



concluded my account of that life with this faculty of comparifon^ fo 

 with it I will begin the account I am now to give of the human mind. 



That the brutes poflefs this comparative faculty, at Icaft in a certain 

 degree, is, I think, evident; for they compare their perce[)tions, are 

 often doubtful, and deliberate, and then a6t in conlequence of a deter- 

 mination upon one fide or other ; which we may call an opinion that 

 they have formed *. And here the mind of the brute adis by 

 itfelf, without the affiftance of the hody^ or its organs ; for, it is 

 certainly not the/?«/^, nor even the phmitajia^ that compares, though 

 they furnifh the materials for the compariibn, upon which the mind 

 ads, as the ftatuary does upon the block of marble. 



It was for this reafon, that the antient philofophers, and par- 

 ticularly the Pythagoreans, did not deny reafon to the brute ; 

 becaufe reafon, according to them, confifted in that faculty of 

 compariibn, which, as we have feen, the brutes pofTefs; But, 

 it is to be obferved of thefe comparifons made by the brutes, that they 

 are only of the perceptions of fenfe, either immediately and diredly 

 from the fenfe, or prelerved in \\\q phantajia, hn<\, fecondlyy the brute 

 makes thefe comparifons, only when he is incited by fome bodily ap- 

 petite, 



* Ariftotle, in the nth chapter of his 3d book de Jnima, feems to apply the word 

 J#|as, or opinion^ tx> the brutes ; for he diftinguiflies betwixt opinion formed from fylio- 

 gifm, which is the opinion of intelleEl^ and belongs only to man^ and that which is 

 without fyllogifm. And his Commentator Simplicius, ia his note upon this pafTage, 

 page 87. fays, that Jamblichus maintained that ^«^4«, taken in the mofl: general fenfe, 

 applied to the determination of the mind of the brute; and that he made the fame 

 diftindlion exprefsly which 1 have faid Ariftotle feems to have made. 



Though 1 have faid abuvt;, that the brute delihenitcs, that is true only in one fenfe; for, 

 haying no idea oi gojd^ nor foreftcing con'equ.nces, he never deliberates, whether he 

 fhould yield or not to any inipulie from ajipetite, if there be but one impulfe; but, if 

 there be two diflercnt impulfes, he mull of necifluy delibeiate, which of them hi Oiall 

 follow: "Whereas, man h.'v:ng the iAca oi good, nnd forel.cing conlequences, delibe- 

 rates in evejy cafe, whexe th re is but one impulfe from appetite, as well as where 

 there are m.my ; and therefore, I think, man may be called a deliberating animal, in ton- 

 tradiftinftion tc the brute, who deliberates but feldom, and on particular occaHons. — 

 But this fhall be more fully explained afterwards. 



