230 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book III. 



obfervatlon, but even fuch of them as are quite young, and unafTift- 

 ed by any practice or experience : For that young birds build their 

 nefts as well as old birds, and in fhort do every thing, both for the 

 prefervation of the individual and the propagation of the kind, is a 

 fad that cannot be difputed. If, therefore, the brute adts with in- 

 -telligence, it muft be an intelligence quite different from ours, which 

 is very imperfect while we are young, but is improved by experi- 

 ence and obfervation. 



But, I fay, if it be true, as I think I have proved, that the 

 brutes have not ideas, I think it muft follow of neceffary confequence, 

 that they cannot, as I have faid, have that difcourfe of rcafon^ or that 

 AiOL^oia,^ or NojjtTij i^ercclBuriKf}^ as the Commentators upon Ariftotle 

 very well paraphrafe it, by which we pafs from one idea to another, 

 and fo difcover the connedion of ideas. It is in that way that we 

 form our opinions, judge of what is good or what is ill, propofe ends 

 arid devife means. Now, an animal, which has not ideas, has not the 

 materials upon which he can ^vork and perform the operations I 

 have mentioned: And particularly there is one operation, which 

 is the foundation of all adions proceerling from intelligence, I mean 

 the forming of an opinion of what is good or ill, which no animal can 

 form, if he has not that very general and complex idea o^ good, or its 

 oppofite ///, in which we are fo often miftaken, but the brute never. 



And here we may obferve, that there is one kind of id^^^as, 

 which it is impoffible he can form, unlefs we allow him not only 

 intelled but confcioufnefs and refledion. The ideas I mean are 

 thofe of the operations of his own mind ; for fuppofmg him capa- 

 ble of formin..'; ideas, or general notions, of the objeds of fenfe, yet, 

 unlefs he can refled upon the operations of his own mind, he never 

 can form any ideas of thofe operations, nor indeed of mind, as we 

 know nothing of any thing but by its energies and operations. So 

 that, even upon the iuppcfition of the brutes having intelled, there 



muft 



