292 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book IV. 



pares thefe objeds, finds out that they agree in one principal 

 thing, of that forms tlie general idea, and perceives the one in the 

 many. Now of this the brute is abfolutely incapable ; and any ufe, 

 that he can be faid to have of intelledV, is confined intirely to parti- 

 cular objeds of fenle : And even of thefe he cannot, as I have 

 fliown, form what can be truly called an idea ; but by his fenfes he 

 gets a very accurate and diftinift perception of them, which is 

 abundantly fufficient for the purpofes of his animal life, and makes 

 him at the fame time very ufeful to man, who by that means reaps 

 great profit from the dominion w-hich God has been pleafed to give 

 hlin over the animals of this earth. How much he profits by that 

 dominion, is evident from the example of thefe barbarous nations, 

 fuch as the favages of North America, who, though they kill and 

 feed upon many animals, make no ufe of them in the operations 

 they carry on. 



Of the progrefs of man in forming general ideas, and how he 

 proceeds from the lefs general to the more general, till at lafl he per- 

 ceives not only the one in the many and in very many, but the one 

 in all, that is God, the author of all, I have fpoken elfewhere at 

 fome length. Here it will be fufficient to obferve, that as the brute 

 cannot form general ideas, he is quite incapable of fcience, which 

 is founded upon general ideas and cannot exift without them. He 

 is alfo incapable even of arts ; for, though fome brutes, fuch as the 

 bees, pradlice wonderful arts, of fome of which I fhall fpeak in the 

 fequel, yet as they have no general ideas, they can have no know- 

 led"-e of the principles of the art, nor indeed know what art is. 

 They may indeed be taught fome arts by man, and by alfiduous 

 pradice form them into habit ; but ftill they do not know what 

 that art, or what any art, is. 



Thus I think I have fhown the diftindion betwixt intelligence 



and 



