2S6 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book IV. 



produces fo many various operations of the brute ; and he tells ur. 

 that the opitiion of M. de Buflbn is, that the Brute is a mere ma- 

 chine, and that all his operations, even the operations of the bee, 

 which are fo various and appear to be fo ingenious, are only re- 

 fiilts of pure mechanifm *. But this opinion Mr Smellie rejeds, 

 and fays that the notion that animals are mere machines is too ab- 

 fiird to merit refuraticn f. And, indeed, if the operations of fuch an 

 animal as the bee, fo various and fo connedted together as to make 

 a fyRem, or polity, more perfetfl, as I fhall {how in the fequel, than 

 any to be found among men, he the refult of mere mechanifm, the 

 whole fyflem of the univerfe may be faid to be nothing but me- 

 chanifm alfo, that is the operation of body upon body. If how- 

 ever I could believe, as Sir Ifaac Newton did, that body being 

 once put in motion, could continue to move itfelf, and in a regu- 

 lar and orderly way ; — and that the bodies of brutes were moved, 

 as he fays our bodies are, by aethers and fubtile fluids ; — I fhould 

 be difpofed to agree with M. de Buffon, and to fuppofe that all 

 the motions of the brutes, many and various as they are, were no- 

 thing but mere mechanifm. 



The only other opinion that can be upon this fubjed, is, that the 

 motions of the brute are produced by the mind of the brute; and 

 then the queftion will be, as I have faid, whether it be his animal 

 mind that produces thefe operations, or whether he has not an intel- 

 lectual mind as well as man ? Now the opinion of Mr Smellie is, 

 that he has fuch a mind, not fo perfe£t indeed as the intelledlual 

 mind of man, but fuch an intellect as is fuflRcient to acconnt for all 

 liis operations. And this is the idea he gives of what he calls the 

 'ii'JIin&s of brides X^ 



But 



* Smellie, Vol. I. p. 336. 

 I Ibid. p. 156. 

 X Ibid. 



