45* B R U 
ilie name or Ch.uTes^l T T. king of Spain, who made gene¬ 
ral Churchill, tlie diike of Marlborough’s brother, gover- 
nor-. The 22d of November, 1708, it was befieged by a 
body of troops under rlie command of Maximilian Ema¬ 
nuel, elector of Bavaria ; but his highnefs being informed 
that the duke of Marlborough had palled the Scheldt, 
with a large part of his army, to fucconr the city, he was 
obliged to abandon the liege, with all his artillery, the 
27th of the fame month, after having been repul fed at the 
counterfcarp, between the gates of Louvain and Namur. 
It was taken by the French in 1746, and rendered back at 
the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. The French republican 
army entered Brutfels on the 14th of November, 1792, 
under the command of Dumourier, loon after the battle 
of Gemappe ; and quitted it again on the 23d of March, 
2793, foon after the battle near Louvain. The French 
took it again in the fummer of 1794. It is twenty-three 
mile's fouth of Antwerp, and tvs enty-fix fouth-eafi of Ghent. 
Lat. 50.49.N- Ion. 21.57. E. Ferro. 
B RTUS'SOW,. a town of Germany, in the circle of Up¬ 
per Saxony, and Ueker Mark of Brandenburg : twelve 
miles north-ea.ft of P'renzlow. 
To BRUS'TLE, v. n. [brajlhan , Sax.] To crackle; to 
make a final 1 noife. Skinner. 
BRUS'ZILOW, a town of Poland, in the palatinate of 
Kiov : forty-fix miles weft of Kiov. 
BRU'TA, f. [nri 3 brutfi, Arab.] An eaflern fhrub, 
bke a cyprefs. This word a]fo means that didxhtic inftinbt 
which is (hewn in brutes; as in the (fork teaching the ufe 
of clyfters. 
BRU'TAL, adj. [bnital , Fr. from brute .] That which 
belongs to a brute ; that which we have in common with 
brutes.—There is no oppofing brutal force to the firata- 
gems of reafon. Id Ef range. —Savage ; cruel ; inhuman: 
The brutal bus’nefs of the war 
Is manag’d by thy dreadful fervants care. Dry den. 
BRUTA'LITY,/! [ brutalite , Fr.] Savagenefs; churl- 
ifhnefs; inhumanity.—Courage, in an ill-bred man, has 
the air, and efcapes not the opinion, of brutality. Locke. 
To BRU'TALIZE, v. n. \_brutalifcr , Fr.] To grow bru¬ 
tal or favage.—Upon being carried to the Cape of Good 
Hope, hemixed, inakindof tranfport, with his countrymen, 
brutalized with them in their habit and manners, and would 
never again return to his foreign acquaintance. Addifon. 
To BRU'TALIZE, v. a. To make brutal or favage. 
BRU'TAI.LY, adv. Churlilhly; inhumanly; cruelly. 
RRUTPI, adj. \_brutus, Lat. ] Senfelefs; unconfcious.— 
Nor yet are we fo low and bafeas their atlieifm would de- 
prefs us ; not walking hat ties of clay, not the fons of brute 
earth, whofe final inheritance is death and corruption. 
Bentley. —Savage; irrational; ferine. — In the promulga¬ 
tion of the Mofaic law, if fo much as a brute bead 
touched the mountain, it was to be (truck through with 
a dart. South. —Beftial; in common with beads : 
Then to fubdue, and quell, through all the earth, 
Brute violence, and proud tyrannic pow’r. Milton. 
Rough ; ferocious ; uncivilized : 
The brute philofopher, who ne’er has prov’d 
The joy of loving, or of being lov’d. Pope. 
BRUTE, f. An irrational creature; a creature with¬ 
out reafon.— Brutes may be confidered as either aerial, ter- 
redrial, aquatic, or amphibious. I call thofe aerial which 
have wings, wherewith they can fupport themfelves in the 
air ; terredrial are thofe, whofe only place of red is upon 
the earth ; aquatic are thofe, whofe condant abode is up¬ 
on the water. Locke. 
Heav’n from all creatures hides the book of fate, 
All but the page preferib’d, this prefent date ; 
From brutes what men, from men what fpirits know ; 
Or who could differ being here below ? Pope. 
Among brutes, the monkey kind bear the neared refem- 
blance to man; both in the external fhape, and internal 
B R U 
llruclure, but more in the former than in the latter. The 
ilrubhire and economy of brutes make the objects of what 
is called'CoMPARATi ve Anatomy: fee that article.— 
Philofophers are much puzzled about the effential cha- 
rableridics of brutes, by which they may be diflinguifhed 
from man. Some define a brute to be, an animal not ripble, 
or a living creature incapable of laughter ; others call them 
mute animals. The peripatetics allowed them a fenlitive 
power, but denied them a rational one. The Platonifis 
allowed them reafon and underdanding, though in a de¬ 
gree lefs pure and refined than that of men. Lablaiitius 
allows every thing to brutes which men have, except a 
fenfe of religion; and even this has been aferibed to them 
by fome fceptics. Defcartes maintained, that brutes are 
mere inanimate machines, abfolutely deftitute not only of 
reafon, but of thought and perception; and that all their 
actions are only confequences of the exquilite mechanifm 
of their bodies. This fyftevn, however, is much older 
titan Defcartes. It was borrowed by him from Gon;ez 
Pereira, a Spanifh phyfician, who employed thirty years 
in com poling a treatife, which he inti tied Antoniana Mar¬ 
garita, from the Chriflian names of bis father and mother. 
It was publifhed in 1354: but his opinion had not the ho¬ 
nour of gaining partizans, or even of being refuted ; frf 
that it died with him. Even Pereira feems not to have 
been the inventor of this notion ; fomething like it having 
been held by fome of the ancients, as we find from Plu¬ 
tarch and St. Augudin. Others, who rejected the Car- 
tefian hypothefis, have maintained that brutes are endow¬ 
ed with a foul effentially inferior to that of men ; and to 
this foul fome have allowed immortality, others not- 
And, ladly, in a treatife publifhed by father Bougeant, a 
Jefuit, intitled, A philofophical Amufement on the Lan¬ 
guage of Beads, he affirms, that they are animated by evil 
fpirits or devils. The opinion of Defcartes was probably 
invented, or at lead adopted by him, to defeat two great 
objections : one againd the immortality of the folds of 
brutes, if they were allowed to have any ; the other a- 
gaind the goodnefs of God, in differing creatures who 
had never finned, to be fubjedled to fo many miferies. 
The arguments in favour of it may be dated as follow : 
1. It is certain, that a number of human actions are merely 
mechanical; becaufe they are done imperceptibly to the 
agent, and without any direction from the will ; which 
are to be aferibed to the impreflion of objeCts and the pri¬ 
mordial difpofition of the machine, wherein the influence 
of the fotd has no fhare ; of which number are all habits 
of the body acquired from the reiteration of certain aCtions. 
In all fuch circumdances, human beings are no better 
than automata. 2. There are fome natural movements fo 
involuntary, that we cannot redrain them ; for example, 
that admirable mechanifm ever on the watch to preferve 
an equilibrium, when we doop, bend, or incline our bo¬ 
dies in any way, and when we walk upon a narrow plank. 
3. The natural liking for, and antipathy againd, certain 
objeCls, which in children'precede the power of knowing 
and diferiminating them, and which fometimes in grown 
perfons triumph over all the efforts of reafon; are 
phenomena to be accounted for from the wonderful me¬ 
chanifm of the body, and are fo many cogent proofs of 
that irrefidible influence which objeCts have on the human 
frame. 4. Every one knows how much our paflions de¬ 
pend on the degree of motion into which the blood is put, 
and the reciprocal impreflions cauled by the fympathy be¬ 
tween the heart and brain, that are fo clofely conneCled 
by their nerves; and if fuch effeCts may be produced by 
fuch Ample mechanical means as the mere increafe of mo¬ 
tion in the blood, without any direction of the will, we 
are not to wonder at the actions of brutes being the effefls 
only of a refined mechanifm, without thought or percep¬ 
tion. 5. A farther proof will arife from a confideration 
of the many wonderful effects which even the ingenuity of 
man has contrived to bring about by mechanical means ; 
the androides, or automata, for infiance, which by mere 
mechanifm are made to play at chefs, blow the flute, and 
3 perform 
