jfo B R U 
their having no more, fmce their foul very likely is more 
acute than ours. But I difcover the reafon of this: it is 
becaufe, in beads as well as in ourfelves, tlte operations 
of the mind are dependent on the material organs of the 
machine to which it is united ; and thofe organs being 
g roller and lefs perfect than in-us, it follows, that the 
knowledge, the thoughts, and the other fpiritual opera¬ 
tions, of the beads, mud of courfe be lefs per fed than 
ours : and, if thefe proud fpirits know their own dilrnal 
Hate, what a humiliation mud it be to them, thus to fee 
themfelves reduced to the condition of beads! But, whe¬ 
ther they know it or no, fo fliameful a degradation is dill, 
with regard to them, the primaryeffed of the divine ven¬ 
geance I juft mentioned; it is an anticipated hell.” 
-Having mentioned the prejudices againft this hypothefis, 
fuch particularly as the pleafure which people of fenfe and 
religion take in beads and birds, efpeeially in all forts of 
doniedic animals ; he proceeds, “ Do we love beads for 
their own lakes r No. As they .are altogether ftrangers 
to human fociety, they can have no other appointment 
but that of being tifeful and amufing. But prejudice will 
operate againft thefe opinions ;• and the cure of a preju¬ 
dice is not to be effected in a moment ; it is done by time 
and reflection: give me leave then lightly to touch upon 
this difficulty, in’order to obferve a very important thing/ 
Pe.i tuadecl as we are that beads have intelligence, have 
■we not all of us a thoufund times pitied them for the ex- 
eeiiive evils which the majority of them are expofed to, 
and in reality luifer i How unhappy is the condition of 
horfes ! we fay, upon feeing a hone whom an unmerciful 
carman is murdering with blows: how miferable is a dog 
whom they are breaking for hunting! how difmal is the 
fate of beads living in woods! they are perpetually ex¬ 
pofed to the injuries of the weather; always feized with 
apprehensions of becoming the prey of hunters, or of feme 
wilder animal ; for ever obliged, after long fatigue, to 
look out for fome poor infipid food ; often Suffering cruel 
hunger; and fubjeCf, moreover, to i Uriels and death ! If 
.men are (ubjeCl to a multitude of miferiesthat overwhelm 
them, religion acquaints us with the reafon of-it, viz. the 
being born tinners. But what crimes can beads have com¬ 
mitted by birth to be Subject to evils fo very cruel ? What 
are we, then, to think of the horrible excetfes of miferies 
undergone by beads ? Miferies, indeed, far greater than 
thofe endured by men. This is, in any other fyftem, an 
incompreheofible myftery; whereas nothing is more eafy 
to be conceived from the fyftem I propofe. The rebellious 
fpirits deferve a punithmejit dill more rigorous, and happy 
it is-for them that'their punithment is deferred. In a word, 
divine goodnefs is'vindicated, man hinifelf is jollified ; for 
what right can we have, without neceffity, and often in 
the'way of mere diverfion, to take away the life of millions 
of beads, if God had not authorised us fo to do? And 
beads, being as fenlible as ourfelves of pain and death, 
how could a juft and merciful Providence have given man 
that privilege; if they were not fo many guilty victims of 
the divine vengeance ? 
“ But hear dill ( inething more convincing, and of 
greater confequence : beads, by nature, are extremely vi¬ 
cious. We know well that they never fin, becaufe they 
are not free ; but this is the only condition wanting- to 
make them finners. Tlte voracious birds and beads of 
prey ai'e cruel. Many infects of one and the fame- fpecies 
devour One-another. Cats are perfidious and ungrateful ; 
monkeys are mifchievou.s ; and dogs envious. All beads 
ni general are jealous and revengeful to excefs j not to 
•mention many other vices we obferve in them: andat the 
tame time that they are by nature fo very vicious; they 
have, fay we, neither the liberty nor any helps to refift the 
bias that hurries them into fo many bad actions. They 
Sire, according to the fchools, neceditated to do evil, to 
difionc.ett the general order, to commit whatever is mod 
contrary to the notion we have of natural judiee and to 
the principles of virtue. What tnonders are thefe in a 
?"jtld originally created for order and jnftj.ee to reign in ? 
T E. 
This is, in good part, what formerly perfuaded the Marti, 
cheans, that there were of neceffity two orders of things ( 
one good, the other bad; and that the beads were not the 
work of the good principle : a mondrous error! But how 
then fit all we believe that beads came out of the hands of 
their Cieator with qualities fo very ftrange! If man is fo 
very wicked and corrupt, it is becaufe he has himfelf 
through fin perverted the happy nature God had given 
him at his creation. Of two things, then, vve mud fay 
one: either that the Deity has taken delight in making 
beads fo vicious as they are, and of giving us in them mo¬ 
dels of what is mod ffiameful in the world ; or that they 
have, like man, original fin, which has perverted their pri¬ 
mitive nature. The fird of thefe propofitions finds very 
difficult accefs to the mind, and is an exprefs contradiction 
to the holy feriptures; which fay, that whatever came out 
of God’s hands, at the time of the creation of the world, 
was good, yea very good. What good can there be in a 
monkey’s being fo very mifehievous, a dog fo full of envy, 
a cat fo malicious ? But then many authors'have pretend¬ 
ed, that beads, before man’s fall, were different front what 
they are now ; and that it was in order to punifh man that 
they became fo w icked. -But this opinion is a mere fup- 
pofition, of which there is not the lead footdep in holy 
Scripture. It is a pitiful fubterfuge to elude a real diffi¬ 
culty : this at mod might be faid of tlte beads with whom 
man has a fort of correfpondence; but not at all of the 
birds, fifties, and infeels, which have no manner of rela¬ 
tion to him. We mud then have rccourfe to the fecond 
propofition, That the nature of beads has, like that of 
man, been corrupted by fome original fin: another hypo- 
thefis void of foundation, and equally ineonlldent with 
reafon and religion, in all the fy dents which have been 
hitherto efpoiifed concerning the fouls of beads. What 
party are we to take? Why, admit of my fyftem, and all 
is explained. The fouls of beads are refractory fpirits 
which have made themfelves guilty towards their Creator, 
The fin in beads is no original fin ; it is a perfonal crime, 
which has corrupted and perverted their nature in it$ 
whole fubdance ; hence all the vices and corruptions we 
obferve in them, though they can be no longer criminal, 
becaufe God, by irrevocably reprobating them, has at the 
fame time divefted them of their liberty.” 
Thefe quotations contain the drength of father Bou. 
geant’s hypothefis, which alfo hath had its followers ; but 
the reply to it is obvious. Beads, though remarkably 
mifehievous, are not completely fo : they are in many in¬ 
dances capable of gratitude and love, which devils cannot 
poffibly be. The very fame paffions that are in brutes 
exid alfo in human nature ; and if we chofe to argue from 
the exiftence of thofe paffions, and the afeendency they 
have over mankind at fome times, we may fay with as 
great iudice, that the fouls of men are devils, as that the 
fouls of brines are. All that can be reafonably inferred 
front the greater prevalency of the malignant paffions a- 
mong the brutes than among men, is, that the former 
have lefs rationality than men: and accordingly it is found, 
that among fuvages, who exercife their reafon lefs than 
other men, every fpccies of barbarity is pradifed, with¬ 
out being deemed a crime. 
On the prefent fubjed there is a very ingenious treatife 
in German,'published by the late profedor Bergman; un¬ 
der the title (as translated) of “ Refearches defigned to 
drew what the Brute Animals certainly are not, and alfo 
what they probably are," That they are not machines, 
he proves with more detail than deemed necelfiiry for re¬ 
futing an hypothefis which would equally tend to make us 
oil machines. It is certain, that the haljirtafoning elephant 
cannot be deemed a machine, by us, from any other con¬ 
sideration, than that he goes upon four feet, while we go 
upon two; and he might as well take us for mere ma¬ 
chines, becaufe we go upon two feet, while he goes upon 
four. But, if animals are not mere machines, vvhat are 
they ? Manifeftly fenfitive beings, with an immaterial prin. 
ciple; and thinking or reafoning beings, to a certain de- 
grec. 
