BRU
BRU
moft ftudious and active after prey, when they are beft fed ; and that hunting, with them, is rather a kind of recreation, as among our fportfmen, than a work of neceflity. On the whole, brutes^ if they have knowledge, fince they act as per- fectly for the attainment of their ends as man, are of confe- rence as liable to praife or cenfure, reward or punifhment, as man. From whence will alfo follow, that their fouls are im- mortal, and confequently there mull be a future ftate, and proper manfions referved for them in another world, accord- ing as they have behaved in this. Chauv. lib. cit. p. 378. In reality, if the fouls of brutes be fpiritual, they muft necefla- rily alfo be indivifible, and therefore immortal ; fince there is no argument deducible from the light of reafon, in proof of the immortality of human fouls, more than of brutes. And, laftly, allowing the fouls of brutes to have knowledge, they muft alfo have religion ; fmce an intelligent creature without a duty to God is a contradiction. Certainly, if a brute knows any thing truly, it muft know itfelf in the firft place, from which knowledge it will naturally be carried to the knowledge of its Creator ; fince one of the firft and eaficft things it can know, is that it did not make itfelf : from all which it will fol- low, that brutes are alfo fubject to the ftings of confcience,c3V. Chauv. lib. cit. p. 79. Mechanifm of 'Brut es. — The Cartefians, on the other hand, adopt that ftrange paradox, of the mechanifm of brutes ; and afTert them not only void of all reafon and thought, but of all per ception. This fyftem is much older than Des Cartes ; it was borrowed by him from Gomez Pereira, a Spanifh phyfician, who employed thirty years in compofing a trcatife, which he entitles Antoniana Margarita-, from the chriftian names of his father and mother. It was publifhed in 1554. But his op: nionhadnot the honour either of gaining partifans, or even of being refuted j fo that it died with him. Vid. Vojf. de Oris. Idolol. 1. 3. c. 41. where Pereira's tenet is thus reprefented from his own apology : lllos motus brutales, quicunque in brutis vlfuntur, non fieri a brutis videntibus, audieniibus aut gujiantibus, feu per quemcumque alium fenfum exteriore?n vel intcrhrem — Sed i-cl ab fpeetcbus objeclorum induclis in eorum or gams vojhis fenft- tivis fmiilibus, cum prafentia funt fequenda Vel fugienda : vel c phantafmatis, cum hese abfunt.
This was revived by Des Cartes % and further afferted by Lc Grand b , D'Armafon % and others of his followers, who were led to adopt this doctrine, from that principle of his philofo- phy, that the eflence of the foul confiits in thinking ; fo that, fuppofing knowledge and thought in brutes, they muft have fouls like thofe of men; the fenfitive foul of the Ariftotelians being held by him a mere chimera. — [ a Vid. Cart. P. 2. Ep.40. Quod adbruta attinet, adeo affueti fumus credere quod ilia mn fo- cus quam homines fentiant, ut facile non fit opinionejn banc deponere- fedfi ajue affueti cfjemus videre automata, qttes acliones noftras om- nes bnitarentur, quas quidem imitari poffunt, atque ilia pro auto- matis habere, neutlquam dubitarcmus, quin anhnal'ia rat'ione defti- tutaforent antique automata. b Le Grand, Inft. Philof. P. 7. c. 18. n. 5. Ejufd. Diffi de Carentia Senfus atque Cognitionis in Brutis. c D'Armafon, La Bete transformed en Machine. 1684. p. ig,feq. Thomaf. Diflerfc Proem. Jurifpruden. Div, §• 40.] _
But Pereira does not appear to have been the firft inventor of tht doctrine ; fomething like it having been held by fome of thean- tients, as we find from Plutarch d , and St.Auguftin c . The latter of which reafonedthus : Mifery being the confequence of fin, it follows, that brutes which have not finned, mould not be mife- rable. Now they would be miferable, if they had perception. Therefore they have none. Befides if brutes had a foul, God would not have given fmful man an abfolute power over them, and a right to kill them for nourifhment. Mr. Du Rondel, profeflor atMaeftricht, has proved from Plutarch, that, before the Stoics, Diogenes the Cynic had maintained, that brutes had neither perception nor knowledge, and were mere machines. So that Pereira has been unjuftly taxed for broaching a novel- ty f .— [ d Plutarch, de Placit. Philof. 1. 5. c. 20. c Augujl. de Quantit. Animse. f Vid. Pafch. Invent. Nov. Antiq. c. 3. Wale, Lex. Philof. p. 224. voc. Btfth. Trev. Dia. Univ. T. 1. p. 1002. voc. Befle.]
'Tis argued by the retainers to this fyftem, that the foul of brutes is altogether corporeal, and confequently void of know- ledge, which all body, in their fyftem, is abfolutely incapable of; that their foul is only their blood, or fome of the purer and finer parts thereof, as frequently expreffed by Mofes ; that brutes have indeed life, but that this confirb only in an aptitude or difpofition of the body for certain motions. In which re- fpect alfo they may be faid to have fenfe, as they do many tilings by inftincr the fame as men by reafon ; but that their motions are all fudden, and blind, not arifing from any knowledge or perception of the foul, but from the fabric and connection of their parts, as the motion of Archytas's wooden dove, Regio- montanus's iron fly, or of innumerable other contrivances of man are known to be s. That brutes exceed men in their operations, no otherwife than as a watch can keep time, and tell the hour better than the artift himfelf that made it. And d weak man can make machines to perform things feemingly fo extraordinary, how eafy was it for an infinitely wife Being; to make automata, to exhibit all the phenomena which we fee of brutes* without any either fenfitive or rational foul ? That the
actions of brutes may be well accounted for, and are no more indications of knowledge than the action of a vine* which, prefaging that it fhall not be able to fupport its own weight, leeks out and clings to the elm ; or of the fenfitive plant, which, upon the approach of a hand, fhrinks or contracts itfelf. How many even of man's actions are refolvable into the fame prin- ciple of mechanifm ? Is it by knowledge or defign, or by in-* ftinct, that we wink when any thing fuddenly approaches our eyes ? that when we ftumble with one foot, the other prefently flies to its affiftance ? that, in falling, we naturally ftretch out our hands ? that a man under torture cries out whether he will or no ? that we continue to walk ? that an artificer can proceed in his work, and a mufician to play on, when our thoughts are turned to fomething elfe ? How is it we breathe, our heart beats, the limbs are moved, and the ftomach and inteftines make a due feparation of the food, rejecting what is ufelefs, and conveying the reft into the blood h ? Is the flight of a bird from a gun, or a fcare-crow, owing to a higher caufe than that of a man, who, on any fudden noife or danger near him, in- ftantly flinches back, or difpofes himfelf for flight. — [ e Chauv. Lex. Phil. p. 79. h Id. ibid. p. 378. IPalc.Lcx. p. 228, feq.] Thus do the Cartefians reafon, till they have almoft brought men to be machines, as well as brutes. So near is the affinity between the fpecies of animals, that one feet of philofophers cannot extol man without elevating brutes together with him ; nor another degrade brutes, but that man muft keep them com- pany. But no direct argument, it is to be obferved, is alleged in fupport of the automatifm of brutes. The doctrine is only maintained by what logicians call preemptions, or prejudices, drawn from the inconveniences arifing from the fuppontion of the contrary. The only fhadow of an argument is, that God could have created machines to perform every thing that is done by brutes. They do not go fo far as to prove that he has done it. Their fallacy lies in not diftingiiiihing the po/nble from the probable ; but from the pofiibility of a thing infer- ring its probability. Morhofr", and fome others, allow of truth on both fides of thequettion; and conclude, that the difficulty will never be decided. Morbof. PolyhilL T. 2. 1. 2. P. 2. c. 45. n. 4. p. 437.
Perhaps the beft argument againft the fyftem of machines is, that it is contrary to the common fenfe zmd apprehensions of all man- kind. Ought not thofe, who deny that brutes have i'enCe, to be combated with the fame weapons that are ufed againft the Sceptics, who deny all truth and certitude, and againft the Im- matcrialifts, who deny the exiftence of bodies ? God has cer- tainly made fools of men, [{brutes be machines. Du Ha?nel 9 de Corp. Animal. I. 3. c. r. Opp. Phil. T. 2. p. 609. In eadetn vclftmili caufa ii mihi videntur ejfe, qui lejiias omni cogita- tione privant, acfccptki, qui omne veritatis lumen nobis eripiunt. Uirique fatis validis utuntur raiionibus, nee facile refelli poffunt ; fed ipfa natures voce cui obftjii non potejl, communi omnium fenfu, expcrientia, & ipfa rerum evidentia ita rcvincuntur, ut ea dicant qua omnino nonfentiimt.
Henry More, in his Enchiridicon Metaphyficum ', F. Daniel, in his Nouvelles Difficulty, publifhed in 1693, and in his Voyage du Monde de Defcartes, as alfo F. Pardies, in a trea- tife of the knowledge of brutes, have preffed the Cartefians hard. Pafchius has alfo a difputation on the fenfe and know- ledge of brutes k , and Willis J a treatife on the fouls of brutes. — [ ' c. 24. k De Brutorum Senfibus & Cognitione. l IVil- lis, de Anima Brutorum. Oxon. 1672. 4 . an extract of which is given in Phil. Tranf. N J 8^- p. 4°7i-J But to fay the truth, we are not much wifer for the labours of thefe learned gentlemen. The common opinion of the un- taught and unprejudiced part of mankind feems to be, that brutes have fenfe, imagination, memory, and paffion, but that they are void of underftanding and reafon ; that is, in the lan- guage of philofophers, they have the inferior faculties of the foul, but not the fuperior. Nor will the distinction appear groundlefs to thofe who attend to the difference between the objects of the mind, and its acts about thefe objects ; as alfo to the difference between the confided and the diftinct comprehen- fion of any thing.
After all that has been faid about the faculties of brutes, what a difference between them and even a child, who can fpeak, rec- kon, and perform the operations of arithmetic ! Some philo- fophers gravely tell us, that brutes want fpeech to exprefs them- felves ; and aflign this as a caufe of their feeming want of un- derftanding. But will not a parrot, brought up in a nurfery with children, learn to pronounce words fooner than they ? but will he therefore alfo learn to exprefs his thoughts, reckon, &c f Ought we not therefore to fay, that brutes cannot fpeak, or make ufe of general figns, which is implied in fpeech, be- caufe they have no underftanding ; inftead of faying, they feem to be without underftanding, becaufe they cannot fpeak ? It is true, brutes do many things, from fome principle incomprehen- sible to us, although there are inftances of a like principle in man ; but it does not follow, that this principle is underftand- ing and reafon. A bee does not make honey, nor does an in- fant fuck from reafon. The like may be faid of many other actions of brutes, as building their nerts, csV. What the true principles of fuch actions is, may perhaps be beyond the power of the human faculties to comprehend. But whatever it be, it is far from putting brutes on a level with man. The difference
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