OF NATURAL HISTORY. ^^s 



rifhment of offspring. But many of them are fo artful, and require 

 fuch perfevering labour, that the human mind is bewildered when it 

 attempts to account for them. If we attend to the operations of qua- 

 drupeds, of birds, and of infeds, moft of them, like pregnant women, 

 feem to know, from their own feelings, and forefight, not only their 

 prefent condition, but what futurity is to produce. To folve this 

 problem, recourfe has been had by Des Cartes, by Buffon, and by 

 other philofophers, to conformation of body and mechanical impulfe. 

 Their reafonings, however, though often ingenious, involve the fub- 

 jedt in tenfold obfcurity. We can hardly fuppofe that the animals 

 adtually forefee what is to happen, becaufe, at firft, they have not 

 had even the aid of experience ; and, particularly in fome of the in- 

 feCt tribes, the parents are dead before their young are produced. 

 Pure inftinds of this kind, therefore, muft be referred to another 

 fource. In a chain of reafoning concerning the operations of Na- 

 ture, fuch is the conftitution of our minds, that we are under the 

 neceflity of reforting to an ultimate caufe. What that caufe is, it is 

 the higheft prefumption in man to pretend to define. But, though 

 we muft forever remain ignorant of the caufe, we are enabled to 

 trace, and even to underftand, partially, fome of the effeds ; and, 

 from thefe effeds, we perceive the moft confummate wifdom, the 

 moft elegant and perfed contrivances to accomplifh the multifarious 

 and wonderful intentions of Nature. In contemplating the opera- 

 tions of animals, from man down to the feemingly moft contemp- 

 tible infed, we ate neceflarily compelled to refer them to pure in- 

 ftinds, or original qualities of mind, variegated by Nature according 

 as the neceffities, prefervation, and continuation of the different fpe- 

 cies require. Let any man try to proceed a ftep farther, and, how- 

 ever he may deceive himfelf, and flatter his own vanity, he muft 

 find, at laft, that he is clouded in obfcurity, and that men who have 

 a more corred and unprejudifed mode of thinking will brand him 

 a. with: 



