Chap.XVIL ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. 215 



were otherwife, and that the brute and vegetable, not to fpeak of un- 

 organized natures, could be fuppofed to propofe to themfelves the ends 

 of their actions, and to devife means for accomplifhlng thofe ends ; 

 in fhort, if they could be fuppofed to operate as human art does, they 

 would have infinitely more intelligence than any human artift ; for 

 no art of man can produce works of fuch wonderful contrivance as 

 thofe of nature. But the Wifdom that diredts thofe works is as much 

 fuperior to human wifdom as the works are to human works. 



3//0, Thofe moving principles a£t without cohfultation or delibe- 

 ration, as well as without confcioufnefs or intelligence. This is un- 

 douhtedly true of the vegetable, and of the rtiotive principle in unor- 

 ganized bodies. But, as the better fort of aniri als come near to hu- 

 man nature, they, as 1 have already obferved *, deliberate upon parti- 

 cular occafions ; but it is not fuch a deliberation as the human ; for 

 they do not deliberate concerning ends and purpofes, of upon gene- 

 ral notions of what is ^00^ or ill\ but all their deliberations are con- 

 cerning particulars, as, whether they fhall yield to one particular in- 

 ftindive impulfe in preference to another. And, as to the works of 

 fome brutes, fo wonderfully artificial, which the (Indents of nature ad- 

 mire fo much, fuch as the cells of bees, the webs of the fpider, the nefts 

 of fome birds, — they perform them neither by art^ as Ariftotle fays', 

 nor with inquiry or deliberation f: And he ridicules thofe who think 

 that nature ads for no end, becaufe they do not fee the motive prlrl- 

 dple confulting and deliberating; and he adds, very properly, * for 

 * even art does not deliberate J.' And, if it be true, that even hu- 

 man art, when it is perfed, does not fearch, confult, or deliberate, 



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